These are some of my favorite
films. The order is alphabetical within each section, and I
selected only one film per director. I have ten entries in
most categories, except American and French, which cover six
from each of the best five decades, a silent, which includes
six in each of five regions. I update the list from time
to time.
Silent Films
American
- Greed (Erich von
Stroheim, 1924).
- He Who Gets Slapped (Victor
Sjöström, 1924).
- It (Clarence Badger,
1927).
- Lonesome (Pál
Fejös, 1928).
- The Man Who Laughs (Paul
Leni,
1928).
- Modern Times (Charlie
Chaplin, 1936). Like City
Lights, this is a consumation of Chaplin's career as
the best physical comedian in the hisotry of film. Where
that film is touching, this film is (comedically) chilling, as
it signals the rise of an increasingly dehumanized world.
It also signifies the end of the silent era with voices coming
through machines as if sound-film were the final insult of
industrialization. For an interesting comparison, watch
this along side Fritz Lang's Metropolis,
Jacques Tati's Playtime,
or Rene Clair's À Nous
la Liberté, which influenced Chaplin
significantly.
French
- Coeur Fidèle
(Jean Epstein, 1923).
- El Dorado (Marcel
L'Herbier, 1921).
- La Roue (Abel Gance,
1920).
- Menilmontant (Dimitri
Kirsanoff, 1926).
- The Smiling Madame Beudet
(Germanie Dulac, 1923).
- Le Révélateur (Philippe
Garrel,
1968)
German (in progress)
- Alraune (Henrik
Galeen, 1928).
- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert
Wiene, 1920). Caligari
is one of the best contributions to German expressionist
art. With its manacing characters, dynamic camera angles,
and geometrically convoluted sets, it delivers frame after frame
of gallery-worthy images, and sinister, disorienting mood
that has never been surpassed. Wiene's other films,
especially The Hands of Orlac
and Raskolnikow,
are also worth seeking out. And, for more visual
extravagance, see Paul Leni's Waxworks
or Karlheinz Martin's From
Mornng till Midnight.
- Faust (F.W. Murnau,
1926). Murnau's adapatation of the classic tale is
visually sumptuous, poetic, and tragic. Murnau's Last Laugh, with no
intertitles, is another favorite--perhaps the high water-mark in
silent cinema. And Nosteratu
is one of the finest horror films ever made. But my second
favorite Murnau is Sunrise,
a technically inventive, sordid, and gripping film about a
love-triangle that takes a violent turn.
- Pandora's Box (George
Wilhem Pabst, 1930). Germany had two great period's for
film: the Weimar years and 1970s with the young guns,
Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders. Many of the best Weimar
films are silent and hold up to the best talkies.
Pandora's Box has some expressionist flourishes, but it is
essential a darkly realist film, based on Frank Wedekind plays,
that deals with the seedier sides of urban life (gambling,
prostitution, poverty, murder). It's most famous for the
extraordinary perfomance of its lead, Louis Brooks, who manages
to remain strong and charmingly resiliant, despite many bad
events and a cast of unpleasant characters who want to control
her. Pabst avoids moralizing, or rather, he suggests
presents the Brooks' classless and openly sexual persona as a
kind of moral paragon. For more like this, see Diary of a Lost Girl,
and for a slightly lighter side of Brooks, see Prixe de Beaute. My
second favorite Pabst is his harrowing film about trench
warfare, The Westfront 1918.
- The Wonderful Lies of Nina
Petrovna (Hanns Schwarz, 1929).
Russian
- Arsenal (Alexander
Dovzhenko, 1928).
- By the Law (Lev
Kuleshov, 1926).
- Happiness (Aleksandr
Medevkin, 1934).
- Storm Over Asia
(Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1928).
- Strike (Sergei
Eisenstein, 1925). Potemkin
may be more celebrated, but I prefer Eistenstein's first
feature, Strike, with
its extraordinary interspersing of shadows, reflections,
machines, mahogany, and animals (both living and dead).
Grotesque, beautiful, and incessantly innovation, Strike remains more
visually compelling and inventive than almost anything made
before or since. Among the other masters of soviet
silent cinema, I adore Pudovkin's Life is Beautiful and Dovzhenko's Arsenal.
- Twilight of a Woman's Soul
(Evgeni Bauer, 1913).
Other (in
progress)
- Borderline (Kenneth
Macpherson, 1930). An extraodinary film made by
Macpherson, film theorist and ring leader of the Pool Group, an
avant garde collective that include the poet HD and her lover
Bryher, who both act in Borderline, along with Paul
Robeson. Primarily a meditation on jealousy, the film also
deals with gay and interracital relationships, and the bigotry
they elicit.
- Erotikon (Mauritz
Stiller, 1922).
- Limite (Mário
Peixoto, 1931).
- A Page of Madness
(Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926).
English Language Films
American Films
1930s
- Freaks (Tod Browning,
1932). Made on the heels of his timeless classic Dracula, Browning's 1932
feature about sideshow performers is arguably even better.
Though it might come across as an exploitation film, it is
actually a film about exploitation, and the talented cast
members are portrayed with far more dignity than they probably
received when they were exhibited in county fairs for their
physical abnormalities. The climax is one of the most
memorable in cinema history.
- The Informer (John
Ford, 1935).
- I Am a Fugitive from A Chain
Gang (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932). Based on a true story, the
film combines prison escape action, rags to riches drama, and
uncompromising social commentary. Paul Muni gives one of
his best performances. My second favorite LeRoy film is Gold Diggers of 1933, which
features spectacular dance numbers choreography by Bugsy
Berkeley and a hard-hitting depression-age theme.
- Lost Horizon (Frank
Capra, 1939). Capra is usually a bit sappy for my taste,
but this film (which has been partially lost) is an
exception. It's a captivating and perhaps metaphorical
tale of people who stumble onto what appears to be a utopian
society in the Himalayas. Should they stay in Shangri-la
or return to their old lives? The question is compounded
by mounting evidence that paradise is not what it appears.1935
- Mad Love (Karl Freund,
1935). Peter Lorre plays a mad surgeon who is obsessed with a
singer and turns her husband into a unwitting murderer by
performing surgery on his hands. Freund also directed The Mummy, but this one is
more deliciously twisted. Freund is also one of the most
accomplished cinematographers in film history, with credits
including The Last Laugh, The
Golem, Metropolis, Michael, Dracula, and Key Largo. The second best
American-made horror film of the '30s is probably Frankenstein.
- Ninotchka (Ernst
Lubitsch, 1939). The 1930s was a great decade for comedies
and, Lubitsch had the touch. Here he casts Swede, Greta
Garbo, as a Russian government official who has come to Paris to
make observations about life in the West. She succumbs to
the discrete charm of the bourgeoisie, of course, but along the
way delivers some of the best deap pan lines in cinema
history. If only all Cold War films were this good.
My second favorite Garbo film is Grand Hotel. Other
favorite romantic comedies of the era include It Happened One Night, The Awful Truth, Sullivan's
Travels, and His
Girl Friday.
1940s
- Citizen Kane (Orsen
Welles, 1941). Enough has been written about this one.
- Out of the Past (Jacques
Tourneur,
1947). A definitive noir with plot twists,
flashbacks, crime, seediness, dark cinematography and, of
course, a femme fatale. The excellent cast includes Robert
Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas. Hard to
beat. Tourneur also made excellent horror thrillers,
including the creepy, campy Cat
People and I Walked
with a Zombie. Other favorite cinema noir films
include John Huston's Asphalt
Jungle, John Farrow's The Big Clock, Billy Wilder's Double
Indemnity, Rudolph Maté's D.O.A., Jules Dessin's Night and the City, Howard
Hawks's The Big Sleep, Charles Vidor's Gilda, Stanley Kubrick's The Killing, Robert
Siodmak's The Killers,
Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me
Deadly, Otto Preminger's Laura, Tay Garnett's The Postman Always Rings Twice,
Boris Ingster's Stranger on
the Third Floor, and Alexander Mackendrick's Sweet Smell of Success.
The best noir cinematographer was John Alton (see especially Raw Deal and The Big Combo).
- Portrait of Jennie
(William Dieterle, 1948). Haunting, creepy, and vaguely
surrealistic, this film was a favorite of Bunuel, and it's easy
to see why. A struggling artist meets a mysterious young
girl in Central Park and then becomes obsessed with finding her
again. A metaphor for the artisitc process? The
stellar cast includes Joseph Cotton, Ethel Barrymore, and Lilian
Gish.
- Spellbound (Alfred
Hitchcock, 1945). Hitchcock is British, of course, but this is
one of his American productions. It is a suspenseful
tribute to psychoanalysis. For authenticity, Hitchcock
consulted the psychoanalysis of his producer, David Selznick (King
Kong,
Gone with the Wind, The Third Man).
Admittedly, there are better Hitchcock films. My top votes go to Rear Window, Notorious, Rebecca,
and North By Northwest
. And, he made some wonderful films while still in
Britain, including The 39
Steps, The Man Who
Knew Too Much, and, especially, The Lady Vanishes.
But Spellbound gets my
vote because of the Dali dream sequence.
- The Treasure of the Sierra
Madre (John Huston, 1948). I think this is
Bogart's best performance. He is absolutely despicable a
gold prospector corrupted by greed. And Sierra Madre also has one
of the best misquoted lines of all time: "We don't need no
badges. I don't have to show you any stinking
badges!" For an even better film about desperate expats in
Latin America, see Clouzot's explosive thriller, Wages of Fear (below).
For another look at Bogart's dark side, see In a Lonely Place or Angels with Dirty Faces.
My second favorite Bogart film is Beat the Devil, which is also directed by
Huston. The characters in that film are more
interesting than the better known Maltese Falcon (also Huston/Bogart), and I
even prefer it to Casablanca,
which has a similar ex-pat theme. Peter Lorre is wonderful
in all three. My second favorite John Huston film is Night of the Iguana with
Ava Gardner and Richard Burton (written by Tennessee
Williams).
- White Heat (Raoul
Walsh, 1949). James Cagney preferred to do musicals, but his
greatest talent was bringing gangsters to the screen. This is
his top performance, and it's also a case study in the Oedipal
complex. Cagney is also incredible in Angels
with Dirty Faces, The Public Enemy, which is
particularly edgy for the time, and The Roaring Twenties, also directed by
Walsh. If you tire of Cagney (per impossible), you can
enjoy Paul Muni the original Scarface,
which is better than the Paccino platform, or Edward G.
Robinson's Little Caeser.
Many of these films are about two-bit hoods with too much
ambition. My second favorite mob film is von Sternberg's Underworld.
1950s
- Night of the Hunter (Charles
Laughton,
1955).
Robert
Mitchum
is
terrifying
as
a
murderous
preacher,
with
Love
and
Hate
emblazoned
on
his
knuckles.
Good
suspense,
visually
sensational,
and
oozing
with
atmosphere.
Mitchim
reprises
his
role
as
a
creepy
stalker
in
Cape Fear, which is
also essential viewing for thriller fans. Director
Laughton is better known as an actor; he gives a great
performance inWitness for the
Prosecution.
- Twelve Angry Men
(Sidney Lumet, 1957). Perhaps the greatest of all
courtroom dramas, it tells the story of one juror (Henry Fonda)
who courageously resists voting with the majority. Even if
you find the theme hokey, it's impossible not to be impressed by
the excellent performances and the taught direction. Lumet
also directed other classics, including especially Dog Day Afternoon, The Pawnbroker, and Network. My other
favorite trial films include Anatomy of a Murder (with
its
gorgeous Ellington soundtrack), Confession, Inherit the Wind, La Verite, The
Passion of Joan of Arc, Paths of Glory, To Kill a Mockingbird,
and Witness for the
Prosecution.
- Shadows (John
Cassavetes, 1959). Shadows
is an imperfect film, but a very impressive first effort, and a
breakthrough in American cinema. Raw, gritty, realism--not
melodramatic like the Italian neo-realists or some Hollywood
social commentary films of similar vintage, but edgy and
uncomfortable, with unknown performers ad-libbing there
lines. This is cinéma
vérité and it brings a
new honesty, hardly anticipated and rarely rivaled, in American
film. Shadows is
also remarkable for it's subject matter: the racism of a white
man who doesn't realize that his girlfriend is black. The
film was released 3 years before To Kill a Mockingbird, and unlike that film
and other important films about race, this one is set in the
urban north, not the rural south. It was not, however, the
first film to focus on the theme of "passing"--the classic
treatment of that phenomenon is The Imitation of Life, made in 1934, and
remade in 1959. Both versions are excellent. For
more Cassavetes, I would recommend Woman Under the Influence, Husbands, and Faces. These films
are difficult to watch because they deal with human ugliness,
but they are all very worthwhile.
- A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia
Kazan,
1951).
Brando's
best
performances
have
never
been
topped
by
anyone,
and
in
this
adaptation
of
the
Tennessee
Williams
play,
he
is
at
his
best:
unpredictable,
crude,
loathsome,
and
captivating.
My
second
favorite
Brando
performance
is
On the Waterfront.
My second favorite Kazan film is A Face in the Crowd with an imitable and
terrifying lead performance by newcomer Andy Griffith. For
close runner's up, I'd include the psychologically harrowing Splendor in the Grass and
the sexually charged thriller, Baby Doll.
- Suddenly Last Summer
(Joseph Mankiewicz, 1959). Elizabeth Taylor in a psycho
ward? Katherine Hepburn as an overprotective mother? A
melodrama about lobotomies and homophobia? A store by
Tennessee Williams adapted by Gore Vidal? Yes! This
extraordinary and neglected classic packs a powerful punch and
is just odd enough to keep cult film junkies drooling.
- Sunset Boulevard (Billy
Wilder,
1950). It would be hard to exaggerate Billy Wilder's
talent as a director. He made some of America's best
comedies (Some Like it Hot,
The Apartment), dramas
(Lost Weekend, Ace in the Whole), noirs (Double Indemnity),
courtroom pics (Witness for the Prosecution), and genre benders
(such as Stalag 17,
which straddles comedy, drama, war, a prison escape). Sunset Boulevard is
arguably the best of the lot. Narrated by a dead man, it
is an eviscerating critique of Hollywood, showing the ugly side
of flops, flunkies, and megastars. Gloria Swanson is magnificent
as an aging icon of the silent screen. For quintessential
Swanson, see Sadie Thompson.
1960s
- In Cold Blood (Richard
Brooks,
1967). Based on Capote's book, this is one of the best true
crimes films ever made. The murderers represent two very
different faces of evil, and each is depicted with unusual
humanity. Chilling yet sympathetic. Brooks knows that showing
less can make the audience feel more. The film is shot in
noir style but has vastly greater depth then the typical crime
thriller thanks to Capote's extraordinary psychological
investigation. Brooks is also the director who brought us Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Key Largo, The Killers, and Blackboard Jungle, all of
which could make a more inclusive favorite film list.
- Midnight Cowboy (John
Schlesinger, 1969). A touching tour of the seedier side. Dustin
Hoffman and Jon Voigt give stellar performances. My second
favorite Voigt film is the disturbing and atmospheric Deliverance. My favorite
Hoffman's are Papillon,
Little Big Man, and Lenny . Rain Man is seriously
overrated. Hoffman and Schlesinger team up again, effectively,
in Marathon Man, but I
find Olivier underwhelming--in any case, it's a nice
juxtaposition of character acting and method acting. My
second favorite Schlesinger is Darling.
- Night of the Living Dead
(George Romero, 1968). A damn good movie, and the first American
film, as far as I know to have a black protagonist, but no
discussion of race. Brilliant opening scene. For the zombie
genre, also check of Peter Jackson's over the top Dead Alive (which is much
better than his Tolkien adaptations). Some of my other favorite
horror films include 2000
Maniacs, The Bad Seed, Basket Case, Evil Dead,
Frankenstein, Invasion of the
Body Snatchers, Psycho, Rosemary's Baby, The
Shining, Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, and The Wickerman.
- Shock Corridor (Samuel
Fuller,
1963). Sam Fuller was rightly called the tabloid poet for
his gritty, high impact glorified B-movies, that influenced many
other directors including the pioneers of the French New
Wave. Luc Moullet praised Fuller as a director who has
nothing to say, but much to do. Highlights include his
seedy cold-war noir, Pickup
on South Street, and The Naked Kiss, which has one of the best
opening sequences in movie history. Shock Corridor, my
favorite, tells the tale of a journalist who gets himself
committed to an insane asylum with the hope that he can write a
Pulitzer prize winning story. Though clearly
sensationalizing, the film also offers some sympathetic
portraits of the mentally ill. Other outstanding asylum
films include Head Against
the Wall, Splendor in the Grass, Suddenly Last Summer, One Flew Over the Cuckcoo's Nest,
and The Ninth Configuration.
- Whatever Happened To Baby
Jane? (Robert Aldrich, 1962). Bette Davis is
unforgettable as a former child star, who must look after a
disabled sister (Joan Crawford) whom she despises. The film is
frightening and sad, and it also includes some good tips on how
to apply make-up. Bette Davis also plays a past-peak
performer in All About Eve,
which is a phenomenal movie. For a third extraordinary
film about a fallen Hollywood star, see Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (above).
- Who's Afraid of Virginia
Woolf (Mike Nichols, 1966). This Edward Albee
adaptation is not exactly easy to watch. Elizabeth Taylor
and Richard Burton play the alcoholic couple from hell, and,
after watching it, you'll never want to drink with your
colleagues again. Taylor and Burton give astonishingly
good performances. Other good films by Mike Nichols
includeThe Graduate, Silkwood,
and Carnal Knowledge.
For
equally uplifting films about alcohol, see Billy Wilder's Lost Weekend or Blake
Edwards's Days of Wine and
Roses. For more fun with Richard Burton, see Night of the Iguana.
1970s
- Annie Hall (Woody
Allen, 1977). Woody Allen is like a trip home for me. His
characters are typical neurotic New Yorkers, who all think too
much. This is his best romantic comedy. For a more cynical look
at romance, see Husbands and
Wives. I also love Crimes and Misdemeanors, Manhattan, and some
Allen's sillier comedies, including Sleeper, Bananas,
and Take the Money and Run.
- Bring Me the Head of Alfredo
Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974).
- Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977).
- The Last Movie (Dennis
Hopper,
1971).
On the heels of his breakthough success with Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper
produced one of the most resiliently unmarketable, unwatchable
films of the decade. A deconstruction of cinema that pokes
fun at the film-making process, the myth of celebrity, and the
macho mystique of cowboys. Hopper gives a
characteristically unsettling performance, but the risks he
takes as a director are even more laudable, if not entirely
successful. Other interesting American art film's from the '70s
include Mark Rappaport's
Causal Relations, Jon Jost's Last Chance for a Slow Dance, and Amos Poe's Unmade Beds.
- Three Women (Robert
Altman, 1977). Altman made so many good films over his
career that it's hard to pick a favorite. His ambitious
multi-character films, like Nashville
and Short Cuts, are
perhaps his most impressive. But this chilling chracter
study about identity, mistreatment, and madness is my personal
favorite. Sissey Spacek and Altman regular, Shelly Duvall
are particularly compelling as two women united by the their
social ineptitude. Janice Rule, the third woman, works
effictively as the conscience of the film. My second
favorte Spacek film is Terrence Malick's badlands, and my second
favorite Duvall is Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller; these two
also stand out as among the best films of the decade, and they
would make an illuminating double feature.
- Taxi Driver (Martin
Scorsese, 1976). The quintessential antihero film. De Nero has
never been better, Cybill Shepherd gives one of her better
performances, and Jodie Foster deconstructs the damsel in
distress. The movie also contains my professional mantra,
"One of these days, I'm gonna get organizized." After Taxi Driver, my favorite
Scorcese film is Mean Streets.
1980s-present
(Are
there any truly great American films since the 70s? Films
that could be listed among the best ever made?)
British Films
- Brief Encounter (David
Lean, 1954). A sensitively handled film about an
affair. Lean is better known for his epics (Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge Over the River Kwai),
but this film has a more human touch, and unlike those other
films, he attempts to tell this story (based on a Noel Coward
play) from a woman's perspective.
- A Clockwork Orange
(Stanley Kubrick, 1971). A Clockwork Orange succeeds by depicting
extreme violence under an irresistible veneer of mod
kitsch. The viewer is forced into complicity by finding
entrainment in cruelty. Ironically, the film is the
inversion of the re-conditioning at the center of it's plot, in
so far as it inoculates against horror, and thus serves as a
commentary on film itself. Kubrick's mastery as a directer
can be seen both in his attention to detail, and his ability to
create masterpieces in multiple genre (Clockwork and 2001 would both easily make a top-ten sci-fi
list, and Paths of Glory,
The Shining, The Killing, and Dr. Strangelove are also
top examples of their respective species). My second
favorite Kubrick is Lolita.
- If... (Lindsay
Anderson, 1968). Malcolm McDowell is more known for his A Clockwork Orange, but
this portrait of life in an English boarding school is also
highly rewarding. It is beautifully shot in a combination of
color and black and white, and the soundtrack features the
phenomenal Misa Luba, an African mass. If... harks back
to Jean Vigo's Zero For Conduct, another boarding school
story, produced at a time when there was no clear boundary
between film and art. Lindsay Anderson's other masterpiece
is This Sporting Life,
which is less artful, but might just be the finest British film
ever made.
- The Lion in Winter
(Anthony Harvey, 1968). Ignore the silly outfits in the
pseudo-Shakespearean melodrama and listen to the dialog.
Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole head up a highly
dysfunctional royal family. Anthony Hopkins makes a brilliant
debut. O'Toole is also wonderful in Lawrence of Arabia, but
this film is more entertaining and more quotable. Hepburn
delivers one of my favorite lines in movie history during the
finale. It's not my favorite Hepburn picture,
however. That prize goes to Suddenly Last Summer.
- The Loneliness of the Long
Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962). The
British New Wave was famous, in part, for a sub-sub-genre: films
about angry young men. This is perhaps the finest, or at
least most representative, of that genre (The Sporting Life may be
finer). Boredom, poverty, neglect, and alienation blend together
to form a cocktail of disaffected anti-authoritarianism which
courses through the lead character. It's the same
sensibility you find in British punk rock years later, but with
less humor. Richardson made other fine films, including
the influential kitchen sink drama, Look Back in Anger, the politically courageous Taste of Honey, and the
iconic Tom Jones. He
also
made
a
terrific
French
thriller,
Mademoiselle, with his
then wife Jeanne Moreau, based on a Marguerite Dumas adaptation
of a Jean Genet story.
- Monty Python and the Holy
Grail (Terry Gilliam, 1975). Where'd you get the
coconuts?
- Peeping Tom (Michael
Powell, 1960). Though essentially a B-movie, this film
delights with its creepy protagonist, stylized suspense, and
super-saturated technicolor. Powell is famous for his
luscious collaborations with Emeric Pressburger, such as the
magical realist dance classic,
Red Shoes, and the psychosexual nun drama, Black Narcissus. Here
Powell branches out on his own to tell the story of a murderous,
perverted filmmaker. Released the same year as Psycho, it shocked
audiences and lead to Powell's banishment from British
film-making. Though hardly timeless, the film does hold up
for it's period aesthetic and for it's sympathetic depiction of
a man made monstrous by childhood abuse.
- Room at the Top (Jack
Clayton, 1959). Ambition and heartbreak in this equisitely
conceived Brit classic. Simone Signorete gives an
extraordinary performance as the aging lover of an upwardly
mobile young man.
- The Servant (Joseph
Losey, 1963). Dirk Bogarde delivers a grippingly sinister
performance as a plotting servant in Losey's classic socially
conscious thriller. My second favorite Bogarde is
Schesinger's Darling,
and my third favorite Accident, which is also directed by Losey
and written, like The
Servent, by Harold Pinter. Among Losey's other
works, honorable mention must go to The Boy with Green Hair.
- The Third Man (Carol
Reed, 1949). This perfect British noir classic set in
post-war Vienna features excellent performances by Joseph Cotten
and Orsen Welles. It's also known for its Oscar winning
cinematography and mesmerizing zither soundtrack. Cotton
and Welles had teamed up before in both Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons;
but on those occasions Welles was in the director's chair.
The Third Man is more
entertaining than either. My second favorite Carol Reed
film is The Fallen Idol, about
a man under suspicion of killing his wife, and a boy who knows
what really happened.
English Speaking Countries Outside UK & US (in progress)
- Careful (Guy Maddin,
1992). A truly strange Canadian film about a Alpine
village in which every one avoids making loud noises because
they might set off an avalanche. This in an homage to The
Brothers Grim, Freud, and Wagner, and it is shot using a
two-color process that makes it look like a hand-colored black
and white photograph. Maddin's Tales from the Gimli Hospital is also
worthwhile, as is The Saddest
Music in The World, which stars is Isabella Rosselini
as a rich, legless entertainment promoter, possessed by grief
and greed. The aesthetic in these films shares something
with David Lynch's best work, Eraserhead,
but they are more campy than creepy.
- The Harder They Come (Perry
Henzell, 1972).
- Videodrome (David
Cronenberg, 1983). Cronenberg is one of the most original
directors of recent times, and one of the best directors from
Canada. His work contrasts interestingly with Adam Egoyan,
another Canadian, because both make films at the boundary
between mainstream and avant garde, with philosophical themes,
but Egoyan tends to be pretentious, where Cronenberg is just the
opposite. His films often have a B-movie feel, which makes them
accessible and cultishly entertaining. Videodrome is my favorite
by far, and not jut because it features Deborah Harrie at her
prime and James Wood. It is a sci fi horror story that
explored the boundary between entertainment and reality, flesh
and technology, mind and media.
- Ten Canoes (Rolf de
Heer and Peter Djigir, 2006).
- Wake in Fright (Ted
Kotcheff, 1971).
- Walkabout (Nicholas
Roeg, 1971). Kind of a cheat, Since Roeg is a Brit, but Walkabout really stars the
Australian outback. I also like Roeg's Performance and,
especially, his under-appreciated Bowie vehicle, The Man Who Fell to Earth.
French Language Films
1930s
- The Blood of a Poet (Jean
Cocteau, 1930).
- The Grand Illusion
(Jean Renoir, 1939).
- L'Atalante (Jean
Vigo, 1934).
- Le Million (René
Clair,
1931).
Clair thought that talkies would ruin cinema, and he was
right. Films lost much of their distinctively cinematic
style. The stopped being other-worldly objects of art, and
became recording of plays and simulacra of life. But this
early sound outing from Clair retains the magical qualities of
the silents. But he also uses sound brilliantly.
Part musical, part screwball comedy, all fun, this film is one
of the sparkling acheivements of French film. There is
only one Clair film I like more: his dada masterpeice Entr'acte.
- Pépé le Moko (Julien
Duvivier, 1937).
- Prix de Beauté (Augusto
Genina, 1930).
1940s (in progress)
- Carnival of Sinners (Maurice
Tourneur, 1943)
- The Children of Paradise
(Marcel Carné, 1945). This fairytale soap opera
presents the lives and loves of a group of performing
artists. Carné is something of a magical
realist. Nothing peculiar happens, but somehow
Carné infuses his familiar story with a kind of poetic
magic that makes it completely captivating. He
creates a similar mood in Le
Quai des Brumes and Le
Jour se Levé, both with Jean Gabin. For
another magical French film about love, don't miss Jean Vigo's L'Atalante, which one of
Truffaut's favorite films.
- L'Éternel Retour
(Jean Delannoy, 1943).
- Goupi Mains Rouges
(Jacques Becker, 1943).
- Riptide (Yves
Allégret, 1949).
1950s (in progress)
- Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud
(Louis Malle, 1958). Proto New Wave thriller with a brilliant
Miles Davis soundtrack. Need I say more? The plot is
simple (an adulterous couple plot a murder a murder, and
everything goes wrong from there), but it's completely
riveting. For other proto New Wave crime films, see Pepe Le Moko, Quai des
Brumes, Touchez Pas au Grisbi, Rififi, and
Bob le Flambeur. The first three on this list all star
the extraordinary Jean Gabin. My second favorite Malle
film is The Lovers,
which scandelized audiences and led to a Supreme Court case on
pornography when it was released.
- Les Enfants Terribles
(Jean-Pierre Meville, 1950).
- Forbidden Games
(René Clément, 1952)
- Mon Oncle (Jacques
Tati, 1958).
- The Pickpocket (Robert
Bresson,
1959). Bresson may be my favorite director. His characters
(usually played by non-actors) speak without affect and engage
in extreme, seemingly gratuitous acts. Despite all this, or
perhaps because of it, his characters seem deeply human.
They wrestle with fundamental existential problems: freedom,
faith, morality. The
Pickpocket is the story of a thief whose motives for
stealing are inscrutible. In a related film, L'Argent,
Bresson follows the descent from petty crime into extreme
criminality. My second favorite Bresson, Au Hasard Balthazar,
is about the mundane cruelties of everyday life as seen through
the eyes of an donkey. I am also fond of Une Femme Douce, which is
about a woman led to suicide by the stifling banality of her
life, and Mouchette, which is a devastating portrait of
a girl who is victimized but refuses to be a victim. For
another great film about a pickpocket, see Sam Fuller's Pickup on Southstreet,
which may have inspired Bresson's masterful opening scene.
For another great new wave director with existentialist
leanings, see early works by Agnes Varda, especially Cleo from 5 to 7, and Happiness.
1960s
- Eyes Without a Face
(George Franju, 1960).
- Happiness (Agnes
Varda, 1965)
- Last Year at Marienbad
(Alain Resnais, 1961). This film isn't for everyone, because it
is short on plot and heavy on narration. It's based on a
screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet, the guiding force behind the
nouveau roman movement in French literature. Like
Robbe-Grillet's novels, this film manages to be intensely
psychological while focusing narrative attention of
architectural details and other minutia. Another great writer,
Marguerite Dumas, wrote the screenplay for Resnais's Hiroshima
Mon Amour, which is a gripping study of impossible love
and the tragedy of war. For something a little less
experimental, I also like Resnais La Guerre et Finie, which examines the
futility of leftist efforts in fascist Spain.
- Les Bonnes Femmes
(Claude Chabrol, 1960). Chabrol is considered the French
Hitchcock, and, though apt, that title does not do justice the
originality of his films. This is my favorite. Every character
and every scene is memorable. Totally ordinary people, yet
completely bizarre; the subtle weirdness of the commonplace. I
also like other Chabrol films including The Butcher and
This Man Must Die, but Les Bonnes Femme is my
favorite.
- The Truth (Henri-Georges
Clouzot,
1960). A compelling film in which Brigitte Bardot gives
the performance of her career as a woman who is on trial for
murder, but is, in reality, being judged for having a less than
chaste lifestyle. Bardot gives a good perfomance (see also
And God Created Woman),
and the femmist message works, though Clouzot also exploits
Bardot as a sex symbol, and thus implicates the audience in the
jury's mistreatment of her character. Clouzot is more
famous for suspense films, such as his unbearably stressful Wages of Fear or his murder
mystery Diaboloque.
My second favorite Clouzot iss Le Courbeau, a chillingly cynical portrait of
persecution and paranoia in a small town (which, like Rules of the Game, was
banned in France during the occupation). Perhaps Clouzot's
best film, Inferno,
was never completed, though there is an excellent documentary
about it.
- My Life to Live
(Jean-Luc Godard, 1962). Anna Karina plays a woman who
descends (?) from her life as a mother/wife to a life a
prostituion. Not the most quintessential Godard, but
perhaps the most evocative. There are many other Godard
films that I love, including his fims about relationships, such
as Weekend, with its
excruciating 30 minute car wreck, Masculin-Femanin, about gender warfare, A Married Woman, about an
unfaithful wife, and Contempt,
with Brigitte Bardot victimized by her film-maker husband
(self-critique?). Godard can pull off poitical
cinema as well, as in La Chinoise, with it's
sympathetic but also scathing critique of fashionable Marxism,
and even the more recent Notre
Musique. I also like Godard's genre
deconstructions, like Les
Carabiniers, which perverts the war film into an
idiotic farce (see also Luc Moullet's ostentatiously imbecilic,
The Smugglers), and A Band of Outsiders, which pokes fun at crime
films. My second favorite instantiation of the French New
Wave is Jacques Rivette's seminal Paris Belongs to Us, in which Goddard makes a
cameo. Of course, the best introduction to French new wave
cinema Godard's Breathless,
with its flagrant amateurism, hand-held cameras, jump-cuts, thin
story line, plot-irrelevant scenes, narrative ambiguity, and
internal film references.
1970s (in progress)
- Eden and After (Alain
Robbe-Grillet, 1970). The seminal novels of the nouvelle
roman also made some excellent films, along with some cheesy
ones. Eden and After is
both. An experiment in aestheticism, and non-linear
narrative, it presents a group of younf people who spend their
days in a faux Mondrian cafe pretending to kill each
other. Like much of Robbe-Grillet's work, it is
sado-masochistic and misogynist. Trans-Europ-Express also fits this
description, and is perhaps a better film, but it relies too
much on new wave aesthetics. The Man Who Lies is another worthwhile new
wave effect. Eden
is aesthetically fresher. L'Immortelle is also worthwhile, and less
sado-massochistic--an unsolved mystery, akin to Marianbad and a
love letter to Istanbul.
- Claire's Knee (Eric
Rohmer, 1970). One of Rohmer's moral tales, with pleasingly
unappealing characters and a plot that revolves around a simple
question about the ethics of romance. In this case, an
author encourages her male friend to have an affair with a
teenager, in order to provide material for a novel. A nice
essay on inappropriate desire. I like the whole moral
tales series, though I am less enthralled by Rohmer's later
films, which are often repellently innocuous.
- Jeanne Dielman (Chantal
Akerman,
1974).
- Nathalie Granger
(Margueritte Duras, 1973).
- Mother and the Whore
(Jean Eustache, 1973).
- The Salamander (Alain
Tanner, 1971).
Italian Films
- 8 1/2 (Federico
Fellini, 1963). Fellini's films are amazing. He resides in a
world of clowns and prostitutes that is sometimes unsettling,
but always warmly human. La Dolce Vita and Amacord are all almost as good as this subtly
surreal biographical film. I also love the sumptuous
excesses of Satyricon.
For
Fellini in a more realist mood, I like Nights of Cabiria, I Vitelloni, and La Strada. An even earlier film, The White Sheik,
anticipates many tropes that define Fellini's mature work.
It is not in league with the others, but it is utterly charming.
- L'Avventura
(Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960). L'Avventura begins as a mystery,
but it transforms into a film about alientation.
Antonioni's films confound viewers because their stories are
incidental and characters are treated as props. Departing
radically from Italian neo-realism, his films are abstract,
existential, moddle-class mood studies, rather than narrative
melodramas about the tribulations of working class life. L'Avventura is the first
film in an excellent trilogy, with The Eclipse and Red Desert. The latter is one of the most
beautiful films I have ever seen, despite its minimalist
palette. For two more accessible films with a similar
mood, see La Notte,
which is about alienation within a relationship, or The Passenger, with Jack
Nicholson, which deals with alienation from one's own
identity. Antonioni's hit, Blow Up, is much accessible than any of these,
and highly entertaining (dig the Herbie Handcock soundtrack),
but like the others, it leaves many riddles unanswered. I
also like Antonioni's earlier films, when he was still working
with in a neo-realist mould, especially Il Grido and Story of a Love Affair--both
involve
the hopeless longing for a relationship, but in one the lead
character wanders, and in the other the lead waits.
- Dillinger Is Dead
(Marco Ferreri, 1969).
- Fists in the Pocket (Marco
Bellocchio,
1965).
Talk
about
dysfunctional
families,
imagine
worrying
about
whether
your
psychotic
brother
might
decide
to
kill
your
mother
or
your
other
siblings.
This
is
an
edgy
and
entertaining
film
was
classified
as
neo-real
on
its
release,
but
it
has
a
new
wave
sensibility.
The
volatile lead is at war with social conventions and traditional
values. The film also has a fine soundtrack by Ennio
Morricone (my favorite Morricone sountracks are The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
and The Mission).
- Germany Year Zero (Robert
Rossellini,
1949).
Harrowing
portrait
of
Berlin
just
after
WWII.
The
film
is
shot
in
the
decimated
city
and
recounts
the
story
of
a
family
struggling
to
survive.
The
main
character
is
a
young
boy
who
must
find
food
for
the
family
since
his
older brother is home-bound for fear he will be captured by the
occupying forces. The sory is presented without judgment,
which is remarkable given the unfavorable portrait of German's
that Rossellini presents in the companion film, Rome, Open City. Even
more than that masterwork, this presents a disturbing glimpse
into the human side of war.
- Love and Anarchy (Lina
Wertmüller, 1973). A touching story set in a
brothel. The success of the film owes much to Giancarlo
Giannini who also appears in other Wertmüller hits.
Here he plays a hapless peasant who has been recruited to
assassinate Mussolini. His expressive face harks back to
the heyday of silent films and has few cinematic rivals.
- Mamma Roma (Pier Paolo
Pasolini, 1962). A harrowing example of Italian
Neo-Realism. Mamma Roma is a mother and former prostitute
who just can't seem to gain respect and straighten out her
life. Accattone
is another fine Neo-Realist effort, but my second favorite
Pasolini is Teorema
about a young man who seduces an entire household. If you
are in the mood for something more bizarre, you might try The Hawks and the Sparows
(talking birds) or Pigpen (can
you say cannibalism). For more Neo-Realism, De Sica's
classics, Bicycle Theives,
Shoeshine, and Umberto D are, of course,
also rewarding, but I prefer the edgier Pasolini films.
- Rocco and His Brothers
(Luchino Visconti, 1960). Visconti's masterful film is a Neo-Realist saga about a
group of struggling brothers who have moved up to the big city
from the impoverished south. The brothers range from
sympathetic to sick, and their story is told with a kind of
journalistic objectivity, typical of this period. The
film's influence on the Godfather
trilogy is unmistakable. For Visconti in a historical
mood, see The Leopard,
with Alain Dillon and Claudia Cardinale. I am also fond of
Conversation Piece,
about the tenants from hell.
- Seduced and Abandoned (Pietro
Germi,
1964).
An
unmarried
young
woman
gets
pregnant,
and
her
family
tries
to
pressure
the
father
into
marrying
her,
lest
the
pregancy
destroy
the
family's
good
name.
That
is
the
premise
of
Germi's
scathing
and
comedic
critique
of
the
perverse
logic
guiding
the
Sicilian
culture of honor. Similar themes are taken up to
great effect in Germi's Divorce
Italian
Style, which is even more over-the-top, but I prefer Seduced and Abandoned.
Much of its success derives from Stefania Sandrelli's
captivating performance in the lead role, who, despite being
victimized by her lover and family, remains the symbol of sanity
and strength.
- Two Women (Vittorio
de Sica, 1960).
Spanish Films - Latin America
- Aventurera (Alberto
Gout, 1950). The queen of trashy Latin American
melodramas. Aventurera
tells the tale of a decent girl turned into a nighclub singer
and prostitute, hell-bent on revenge. The music is
sensational as is the twisting, turning plot. Strong
performances by leading ladies, Ninon Sevilla and Andrea Palma.
- The Castle of Purity
(Arturo Ripstein, 1975).
- The Criminal Life of
Archibaldo de la Cruz (Luis Bunuel, 1955). I like all stages of
Bunuel's career, from his avant garde early works, like Un Chien Andalou to his
mature surrealist masterpieces, such as The Exterminating Angel, The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and Phantom of Liberty. The Criminal Like of Archibaldo de
la Cruz was done during Bunuel's Mexican period, and it
tells the tale of an artistocrat who thinks he has the power to
kill by act of will. It covers many classic Bunuel themes:
the upper classes, the Church, machismo culture, and a sexual
fetishes. The film is low budget and full of wooden
performances, but all the deficits in prodcution quality are
fully compensated for by its perverse originality and comic,
surrealistic charm. The film contrasts sharply with my
second favorite of Bunuel's Mexican films, Los Olvidados, which (minus
a disturbing surrealistic dream sequence) is a darkly realist
portrait of street kids and their violent world. My
favorite of Bunuel's late films is That Obscure Obect of Desire, for which he
ended up casting two women in the lead role when he fired the
troublesome Maria Schneider (Last
Tango in Paris) from the set during production.
The best starting place for Bunuel may be Belle de Jour, which is an
accessible and entertaining surrealist classic.
- El Dependiente
(Leonardo Favio, 1969).
- El Topo (Alejandro
Jodorowsky, 1970). The Ukrainian, Jewish, Chilean artist,
composor, and direcor Jodorowsky does not suffer from a lack of
talent, energy, or originality. His films are among the
most unusual that have ever been made. Offensive,
exploitational, violent, absurd, dated and completely
captivating. El Topo
(the mole) is his version of a spagetti western, complete with a
mysterious, black-clad, amoral gunslinger who sets out (for
romantic gain) to take on a serious of increasingly dangerous
and bizarre fighting masters who live in a stark desert
landscape. Think Leone meets the Shaw Brothers on
acid. But for all it's low-brow weirdness El Topo remains a peice of
art. It's a blend of pop, po-mo, and shock that
anticipates the sensibility of Jake and Dinos Chapman by 20
years. Other favorite westerns include Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Once Upon a Time in the West,
The Great Silence, and
The Man Whe Shot Liberty
Valance.
- La Colonia Penal (Raul
Ruiz, 1977).
- Maria Candalaria (Emilio
Fernández,
1944). A rich land owner covets a poor farmer's wife, and
things go south from there. That is the simple plot of
this draw-droppingly beautiful and poetic film. Rightfully
regarded as one of the high water marks in Mexican cinema, Maria Candalaria is a
political commentary on the integrity of indigenous people, and
the hardships they endure. It is also a great artistic
acheivement, aesthetically akin to masterworks like Soy Cuba. Ironically,
the story also involves a artist, whose desire to capture native
beauty also leads to devastation.
- Memories of Underdevelopment
(Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1968). Perhaps the
greatest Cuban film of all time, Memories tells the story of a wealthy
landloard, writer, and art collector, who decides to stay in
Havana after the revolution. His relationships with women
are a source of disappointment (some are lost memories, some are
mere fantasies, and some go badly wrong), and perhaps they serve
as a metaphor for his relationship to his changing
homeland. The film is quintessentially new wave, and Alea
uses newsfootage, montage, and non-linear narrative elements to
great effect.
- Presage (Luis
Alcoriza, 1975).
- The Swamp (Lucrecia
Martel, 2001).
Spanish Films - Spain (in progress)
- Cria Cuervos (Carlos
Saura, 1976). Ana Torrent gives a captivating performance
as a child who sees too much. The film can be seen as a
metaphor for the way in which Spain's fascist leaders betrayed
the people, or as a commentary on mundane human selfishness and
cruelty, or an essay on memory and lost innocence.
The soundtrack is also excellent, espcially Jeanette's sad and
catchy pop hit, Porque te Vas. Watch this as a double
feature with El Sur,
below. Cuervos dance films are also superb.
- Death of a Cyclist (Juan
Antonio
Bardem, 1955).
- Rapture (Ivan Zulueta,
1980).
- El Sur (Victor Erice,
1983).
- Strange Voyage (Fernando
Fernán
Gómez, 1964).
Portuguese Films (in progress)
- All the Women in the World (Domingos
de Oliveira, 1967).
- Black God, White Devil
(Glauber Rocha, 1964). The crowning achievement of
Brazil's Cinema Novo movement, Rocha blends the realism of
Italian filmmaking, the freshness of the French, the theatrical
qualities of the Japanese, and the lyricism of local folk
music. Shot in arid Bahia, this sparsely scripted
masterpiece captures the complexity and contradictions of
Brazilian culture. It tells the story of a poor herder
turned outlaw, who encounters cult leaders and bandits, while
hunted by rich land owners and the church. The influence
on Sergio Leone in aesthetic, theme, and sound design is
unmistakable. I am also fond of Raucha's Terra Em Transe, which is a
kind of tragic visual political poem.
- Eros (Walter Hugo
Khouri, 1964).
- The Margin (Ozualdo
Ribeiro Candeias, 1967).
- Orfeo Negro (Marcel
Camus, 1959). Magical realism in the favelas of Rio. One
of cinema's great soundtracks adds an added pleasure to this
contemporary retelling of the Orfeus myth, which captures the
exuberant spirit of
Carnival. Orfeo Negro triumphantly rejects the prevailing
approach of Italian neo-realism, because it explores rich
sources of joy and meaning in the lives of poor people, rather
than melodramatically glorifying hardship in a
pseudo-documentary style. Perhaps the upbeat
lyricism would have been tempered had Camus been Brazilian
rather than French.
- The Unscrupulous Ones (Ruy
Guerra,
1962).
This
exquisitely
composed
Cinema
Novo
classic
presents
an
episode
in
the
life
of
two
men
who
try
to
profet
off
the
explotation
of
women.
The
result
is
penetrating
psychological
study
of
casual
sadism
and
wasted
youth.
It's
also
a
film
about
isolation
and longing, with each character seeking fruitlessly for honest
affection. The mood evokes Antonioni, but it's edgier, and
the style and setting are unquestionably Brazilian.
Japanese Films
- Branded To Kill
(Seijun Suzuki, 1967). Suzuki made a series of gangster
films in the 1960s that become increasing abstract. By the
time he made this film, he had essentially given up on
plot. The film is a series of amazingly photographed
vignettes involving a mobster (the Number 3 Killer), who has
sexual obsession with the scent of boiling rice. Susuki
was promptly fired and almost lost his career for crafting this
rarified masterpiece. Other great Susuki films include Gate of Flesh, about a gang
of post WWII prostitutes, Youth
of the Beast, about sadistic mobsters and a vengeful
cop, and Tokyo Drifter,
about a gangster who tries to get out of the business. The
last of these films, with its stylized Technicolor photography
and funky jazz soundtrack, is regarded as an important
work of a pop art. Perhaps his greatest film, however, is
Story of a Prostitute,
which is more subtle and serious than any of these.
- The Burmese Harp (Kon
Ichikawa, 1956). American WWII films tend to glorify the
war. Things looked different from the Japanese side.
This poetic film tells the story of Japanese soldiers in Burma
at the end of the war. It advertises the dignity of peace
and compassion over the honor of victory and conquest. To
see a less sympathetic perspective on the Japanese, see Wen
Jiang's Devil's on The
Doorstep, which tells the story of Chinese villagers
who are trusted to hide a captured Japanese soldier and his
translator in a town that has been occupied by the Japanese
army.
- Death by Hanging
(Nagisa Oshima, 1969). Oshima is mostly known for
his artful erotic (or pinku) films, but his output is
diverse and highly impressive. Death by Hanging is part
farce, part social commentary, part surrealist experiment, part
philosophical essay. It deals with Japan's bigotry towards
Koreans and with the morality of the death penalty. It
also raises two perennial philosophical questions: what is the
link between memory and identity? are we responsible for
our actions or are we shaped by our environment? The
impact of the film is helped by the lead actor whose stoic
performance transforms him into a moral beacon despite having a
monstrous past. My second and third favorite Oshima films
are Diary of a Shinjuku Thief
and The Man Who Left His
Will On Film. The other great directors to bridge
pinku and arthouse are Yasuzo Masumura, Masao Atachi, Akio
Jissoji, and Koji Wakamatsu, who is especially remarkable for
his blend of avant garde, political activism, and horrifying
sadism.
- The Face of Another
(Hiroshi Teshigihara, 1966) This is the stunningly photographed
story of a man who loses his face in a chemical accident and is
given a replacement by a deranged plastic surgeon. The new
face changes the protagonist's personality, raising interesting
questions about identity and character. I also love
Teshigaha's haunting and
beautiful allegorical film,
Woman in the Dunes, as well as his genre-blending
first feature, Pitfall
(a murder mystery, leftist social critique, and ghost story all
in one). All three of these are adaptations of Kobo Abe
novels. If you want a good double feature, watch The Face of Another with
Georges Franju's brilliant French horror-noir, Eyes Without A Face.
For other films that deal with identity, I'd strongly recommend
Antonioni's The Passenger
, Bergman's Persona, and
Kiarostrami's
Close-Up (below).
- Flame and Woman (Kiju
Yoshida, 1967). Not well know in the West, Yoshida was a
major figure in Japan's new wave. Flame and Woman is
about a woman who becomes obsessed with the natural father of
her child after getting articficially inseminated.
Yoshida's films are masterpeices of aesthetic formalism.
In Flame and Woman,
the camera is often looking down on the actors. In Heoric Purgatory, the
camera consistently crops actors at the neck, leaving
large expanses of empty space. In The Affair, their is a
vertical line at about the midpoint of almost every shot, subtly
dividing the image in two. The Affair is my second favorite Yoshida; it's
about the affairs of a woman whose mother had affairs and whose
husband is having an affair.
- The Pornographers (Shohei
Imamura,
1966). A quirky and entertaining film about the family life of a
pornographer who becomes obsessed with making a perfect sex
doll. Despite it's theme, this is not a "pinku" film--no
gratuitous sex or nudity (compare Wakamatsu). It indulges
in some of the the bizarre excesses of that genre, withou the
distraction of actually containing ponrnographic elements.
It is more of a deranged and comedic family drama. For the
more serious side of Imamura, see The Insect Woman, which can be interesting
juxtaposed with Naruse's supperb When a Woman Ascends the Stairs. Another
fascinating effort is the pseudo-documentary A Man Vanishes, which
should be watched along with Teshigahara's The Man Without a Map.
- Onibaba (Kaneto
Shindô, 1964). A stunningly beautiful and
nightmarish film, about feudal Japan. Two women survive by
killing samurai and selling their armor. The film is based
on an old fable, and it includes the most beautiful footage of
grass fields that I have ever seen. Shondo's aestheticism
is apparent throughout his work. Naked Island, for example, resembles a Hokusai
manga.
- Rashomon (Akira
Kurosawa, 1950). There is no way to select a favorite Kurosawa
film. Few directors have created as many masterpieces. Rashomon is not the most
sumptuous (that honor goes to Ran),
nor the most moving (Ikuru
is the obvious choice), nor the most entertaining (for that see
Yojimbo, The Seven Samurai, or High and Low), but it may
be the most innovative. The film involves a trial in which we
are shown multiple perspectives on the same event. It reminds us
that film, even when factual, can present only a version of
reality.
- Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji
Mozoguchi,
1954).
A
heart-wrenching
epic
set
in
medieval
Japan.
It
tells
the
story
of
a
family
torn
apart
when
the
father
is
exiled,
the
mother
is
sold
as
a
courtesan,
and
the
children
are
forced
into
slavery.
Almost
every
scene
is
poignant,
and
each
shot is exquisitely framed like a wood block print.
Mozoguchi's Ugetsu
and Life of Oharu are
equally rewarding. Ugetsu
focuses on the consequences of greed and the horrors of
war; Oharu tells the
almost unbearable story of a women who is sold by her family
intro prostitution. These films are unmistakably Japanese in
their focus on family, duty, status, and tradition.
- Tokyo Story (Yasujiro
Ozu, 1953). Ozu's masterpeice is a movie story about aging
and the clash between old Japan and new. Executed with
charactersitc subtlety and understatement, no film better
captures the style of this master director. Also not the
frequent use of low camera angles, which give this film a
distinctively Japanese aesthetic. The camera, like the
performers, is often sitting on the floor. My second
favorite Ozu is Late Spring
and perhaps, after that, Floating
Weeds. Though, really, the whole corpus is
great, and, like a painter, many of the films are thematically
and stylistically related.
Indian Films (in progress)
- Cloud-Capped Star
(Ritwik Ghatak, 1960). Ghatak's most famous film tells the
story of a woman who is exploited by her family -- members of
the Bengali community displaced after the creation of
Bangaladesh. Though noteworthy for it's feminist themes,
the tragic theme is not unusual in Indian cinema. What
makes the film so striking is Ghatak's direction, including his
masterful sound design, which gives the film a haunting and
poetic quality. Also checj out Ghatak's Subarnorekha.
- Dividha (Mani Kaul,
1975).
- Interview (Mrinal Sen,
1970). Indian cinema is more known for Bollywood splash
than for avant garde experimentation, but Mrinal Sen made films
whose artisitic merits rival the great European autures.
This Kafkaesque entry in his Calcutta trilogy tells the tale of
a man who is desperately tyring to find a Western suit for a job
interview. Sen plays with the viewer throughout and
preserves a light and ironic touch, but doesn't lose touch of
the serious subject matter: a critique of capitalism and
colonialism. My second favorite Sen is Bhuvan Shome--a creatively
crafted and charmingly acted tale of a tough boss who grows a
heart.
- Maya Darpan (Kumar
Shahani, 1972).
- Pather Panchali
(Satyajit Ray, 1955). The most famous Bengali film in
the West is almost certainly Ray's masterful, Pather Panchali. This
is the first film in Ray's Apu trilogy, and the most
moving. Ray manages to avoid facile sentimentality while
breaking your heart. The third film in the trilogy is my
second favorite, and the second ranks third. Ray directed
an impressive number of first rate films that are less known
then these. Outside the trilogy, my favorite Ray's are The Music Room, The Adventures of
Goopy and Bagha, and Charulata.
- Pyaasa (Guru Dutt,
1957). My favorite Bollywood film, this is a poignant
story about a struggling poet, who is shunned by his
family. Dutt directs and plays the lead, giving a haunting
performance. Dutt's Kaagaz Ke Phool is also
extraordianry, and he is an excellent leading man in Abrar
Alvi's Sahib Bibi Aur Ghula,
which is an interesting study in gender and caste. All
these films are from the Golden Age of Bollywood cinema.
Like current films from Mumbai, they are musicals, but this
should not be off-putting. They are not at all corny; the
music is gorgeous, and they give the films a magical realist
quality.
- Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (Abrar
Alvi,
1962).
A
story
of
decadence
and
decline,
set
in
the
household
of
rich
man
who
indulges
in
wine
an
women,
leaving
his
wife
into
despair.
Guru
Dutt
plays
an
architect
of
humble
means
and
high
caste,
who
serves
as
the
narrator
and
conscience of the film. The acting, music, and editting
are superb and the story, while indulging in some architypes and
cliches, provides a fascinating window in Indian culture and
history.
- Shree 420 (Raj Kapoor,
1955). It's hard to choose between Raj Kapoor films.
They often deal with an honest and poor protagonist, heavily
inspired by Chaplin's little tramp, who discovers corruption in
the big city. They are lushly produced, with great music,
and a classic Bollywood blend of comedy, tragedy, romance, and
fast-paced drama. In this one, Kapoor is a homeless
bumpkin who falls for a school teacher played by superstar
Nargis (see also Awaara).
In his efforts to woo her, he decides to take up a lucrative
life of crime (the title refers to the Indian criminal
code). It's all very over-the-top, of course, but no one
can pull this off as well as Kapoor. For another good film
about a poor man in the big city, see Mitra and Mitra's Jagte Raho.
Middle Eastern Films (in progress)
- Adrift on the Nile (Hussein
Kamal,
1971).
Ostensibly
a
moral
tale,
about
excessive
drinking
and
drug
use,
this
film
gives
us
a
window
into
the
decadent
world
of
Egypt's
social
elite.
In
some
ways,
it
recalls
Antionioni's
explorations
of
the
aimless
upper
echelon,
but
the
the
deviant
clique
featured
in this film includes a wider range of social stata, including
performing artists, and a disaffected city clerk. The
moralizing works because the characters are portayed with
sympathy, everyone is equally guilty, and the theme is escapism
not iniquity.
- The Battle of Algiers
(Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966). This Italian produced film has
Arabic dialog and concerns the the Algerian independence
movement, so I've put it in this category. It is essential
viewing for anyone who wants deeper insight into
terrorism. Rather than portraying terrorist bombers as
homicidal maniacs, Pontecorvo examines how ordinary people can
resort to violence under conditions of occupation. For
another classic about occupation, see Melville's Army of Shadows--a true
strory about the French resistance. Together, these films
show both sides of the French experience with imperialism.
Also worth seeing is Pontecorvo's Queimada, in which Marlon Brando plays a
British colonialist, who helps incite a slave revolution in a
fictional Caribbean country.
- Cairo Station (Youssef
Chahine, 1958). A neo-realist picture from Egypt revolving
around a group of poor women who sell soft drinks for pocket
change. Part thriller, part expose, and part social
commentary, Chahine gives depth and dignity to characters who
have failed to follow prevailing social norms.
- Gaav (Dariush Mehrjui,
1969). This breakthrough film marks the dawn of great
Iranian cinema. A farmer loses his cow and descends into
madness. Almost every shot is memorable, starting with the
opening titles. The film is a window into village life in
Iran, but also a universal portrait of loss. For a more recent,
brilliant Mehrjui, see Hamoun.
- A Moment of Innocence
(Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1996). As a young political activist
Makhmalbaf stabbed a policeman. In this film, he re-enacts
that event. The film moved between re-enactment and the
director's interactions with the cast members, whose lives echo
his own past. An innovate film from one of Iran's best
current directors. I also recommend Makhmalbaf's The Cyclist, a moving and
mythic story about a poor man who agrees to cycle for days
without stopping in order to pay hospital bills for his dying
wife.
- The Nightingale's Prayer (Henry
Barakat,
1960).
An
Egyptian
feature
based
on
a
classic
novel
dealing
with
the
mistreatment
of
women
in
both
small
towns
and
big
cities.
Essentially
a
melodrama,
but
the
acting
and
art
direction
are
superb,
the
plots
twists
effectively,
the
characters
are
compelling,
and
the
message has deep moral resonance. There is also something
irresistably clever about the central narrative device: love is
a murder weapon. Also superb is Barakat's A Man in Our House.
- Three Days and a Child
(Uri Zohar, 1967).
- The Wind Will Carry Us
(Abbas Kiarostrami, 1999). Essentially a visual poem, this
film follows the mundane routines of a man who has come to a
remote village to photograph a mourning ritual. Though
virtually plotless, the film explores the protagonist's changing
attitude toward death against the background of a place that is
frozen in time. This may be Kiarostrami's masterpiece but
other films come close. In Taste of Cherry, he follows a man who is
looking for someone to help him commit suicide. Close-Up is a
semi-documentary re-enactment of an incident in which a poor man
impersonated the director Makhmalbaf in order to win the
affection of a wealthy family. Kiarostami's first feature,
The Report, is a
brilliant meditation on bureacracy.
Other East Asian Films (in progress)
- The Housemaid (Ki-Young
Kim,
1960). In this perfect psychosexual thriller, a middle
class family hires a maid who proceeds to seduce the
husband. Will the wife try to kill her? Or
will she kill the wife? Ki-Young Kim uses sound, situation,
sordid characters, and striking imagery to keep viewers at the
edge of their seats. The film came out the same year as Psycho and Peeping Tom, and it belongs
in the same league.
- In the Mood for Love
(Wong Kar-Wai, 2000). This is an exquisite essay on unfulfilled
love. Wong ingeniously frustrates the viewer by shooting scenes
from behind barriers and keeping central characters concealed
from the camera. Watching it, you feel like a voyeur, which
captures both the eroticism of the relationship portrayed and
the impossibility of its consummation. The film is visually
stunning and the soundtrack is superb. The sequal, 2046
is almost as pleasing aesthetically, but it's not nearly as
haunting emotionally. For a better choice, see Wong Kar-Wai's
masterful early effort, Days
of Being Wild, which forecasts the style of In the Mood For Love, or
see his neo-new wave hit, Chun
King Express.
- Last Life in the Universe
(Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, 2003). A Japanese man with OCD get
involved with an untidy Thai woman in Bangkok in this carefully
paced, surreally inflected, imaginatively conceived film.
There are also some dramatic subplots here, having to do with
suicide, mobsters, and car crashes, but these twists take
backstage to the unlikely and somewhat ambiguous relationship in
the foreground.
- The Nail of Brightness (Lino
Brocka, 1975).
- Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall
His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010).
- What Time is It There
(Ming-Liang Tsai, 2001). One of the more interesting
active directors, Ming-liang Tsai focues, in this film, on the
themes of time and solitude. A young man who sells watches
on the street starts changing public clocks to European time
when an attractive stranger tells him she is going on a trip to
Paris. Her experience there, like his back home, is lonely
and lacking in direction. Shades of Antonioni here and
also a tribute to Truffaut with a cameo by Jean-Pierre
Léaud.
German Films (in progress)
- The Blue Angel (Josef
von Sternberg, 1930). The ultimate Weimar Period film, The Blue Angels tells the
story of a professor, Emil Jannings, who falls in love with a
night club singer, Marlene Dietrich, who leads him on a path to
destruction. Should we blame the singer, the professor, or
the social system that makes status lines impenetratble?
The film is morally ambiguous, but it deilvers a subtle jab at
the status norms of high society. Both stars do a superb
job; it's probably Dietrich's best role, and Janning's second
best (his best is in Murnau's The
Last Laugh). Jannings ended his distinghuished
carreer in dishonor, becaue he was an active supporter of Hitler
during the war. Dietrich moved to the United States just
before the release of The
Blue Angel, and became a staunch critic of Hitler,
receiving a Medal of Honor for her efforts to denouce Nazis
through entertainment. She and von Sternberg made other
great films in the States, including Shanghai Express and Morocco. My second
favorite von Sternberg is Salvation
Hunters, his poetic first film.
- Ecstasy (Gustav
Machatý, 1933).
- Fitzcaraldo (Werner
Herzog, 1982). So many Herzog films tell the same story: an
obsessed man, taking on an incredible challenge, for no good
reason. This is perhaps his greatest work. Klaus
Kinski wants to bring opera to a remote part of the Amazon, and
to fulfill his ambition, he needs to move a ship over a stretch
of land to get from one river to another. A documentary
about the making of this film, Burden of Dreams, is almost as good. My
second-favorite Herzog-Kinski collaboration is Aguirre, Wrath of God,
based, like Apocalypse Now,
on Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
- The Goalie's Anxiety After
the Penalty Kick (Wim Wenders, 1972). A
goalie goes off wandering after poor performance on the
field. He commits an arbitrary murder and then continues
on his aimless journey. Like Antonioni, Wenders is
interested in alienation, and he trades in plot for mood.
My other favorite Wenders films include Paris,Texas (in English),The Wrong Move (with a young Nastassja
Kinski), and The American
Friend (with Denis Hopper in Wender's rendition of the
book that inspired The
Talented Mr. Ripley and Plein Soleil). Many people love Wings of
Desire, which, like The
Goalie's Anxiety, is based on a Peter Handke story, but
I find it a bit pretentious in comparison to Wenders's earlier
films.
- M (Fritz Lang, 1931).
One of the best films all time. Peter Lorre is magnificent a
child killer, who gains our sympathy when he is hunted by all
walks of society: parents, police, mobsters, and beggars. Lange
uses sound brilliantly from the opening nursery rhyme to the
terrifying whistle of the Peer Gynt suite. I also
recommend Fury, Fritz
Lang's first American film, for another look at how ordinary
people can become possessed by a thirst for retribution. Scarlet Street is also
terrific, with Edward G. Robinson as an amature painter who gets
snookered by a femme fatale. My second favorite Lang,
however, is his breakthrough silent classic, Destiny, in which
Death gives a mourning woman vistas onto love and loss in three
other cultures.
- Mädchen in Uniform (Leontine
Sagan, 1931).
- The Paralllel Street (Ferdinand
Khittl, 1962).
- In a Year of 13 Moons
(Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1978). Fassbinder was the
enfant terrible of German cinema, and is his short career he
produced an astonishing number of good films. So
consistently good, in fact, that it is hard to pick a
favorite. He is better known for The Marriage of Maria Braun and The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.
13 Moons is perhaps his
most ucompromisingly brutal, but also among his most
humane. It tells the story about a man who gets a sex
change to pleasure his lover, which initiates a tragic pursuit
of love an acceptance. My other favorite Fassbinder's
include Ali: Fear Eats the
Soul, Chinese
Roulette, Gods of the Plague, Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?, and Veronica Voss.
- Yesterday Girl (Alexander
Kluge,
1966).
A
major
influence
on
Fassbinder,
Alexander
Kluge
effectively
launches
new
german
cinema
with
this,
his
first
feature.
Kluge's
sister
plays
a
Jewish
woman
from
East
Germany
who
has
imagrated
to
the
West
in
search
of
a
better
life.
Instead,
she
finds
herself
imprisoned, repeatedly fired, evicted, and abandoned. The
film is austerely shot, and exploits numerous unconventional
stylistic and narrative devices, which frustrate interpetation
and give it an enduringly irreverant vitality. Kluge's
brilliance also shines in The
Artist in the Circus Dome: Clueless, the closely
related Die Unbezähmbare
Leni Peickert, and Part-time
Work of a Domestic Slave.
Scandinavian, Dutch, and Belgian Films (in progress)
- Day of Wrath (Carl
Dreyer, 1943). Set in the 17th century, a young woman
falls in love with the son of her own husband, an aging
minester, and is suspected of being a witch. The film is
spiritually ambiguous (are there really supernatural powers at
work?) and morally ambiguous (do we pity the yong woman or
dispise her?). Dreyer is Denmark's greatest director and
his films acheive a high degree of dramatic tension despite
their careful pacing, and, as a former silent film maker, he
knows how to use visuals--often the stern faces of his
actors--to engage our emotions. I also like Dreyer's Ordet, which is one of the
best films about religious belief, and Gertrude, one of the best films about
infidelity. Dreyer's silent films, Joan of Ark and Vampyr, are aslo great
viewing.
- Hour of the Wolf (Ingmar
Bergman,
1968). My favorite Bergman film, it took me years to find
on video. An artist seeks isolation on an island, but is instead
tormented by his very peculiar neighbors. Dig the Mozart puppet
show. My second favorite Bergman is Persona, which is perhaps
his most accomplished film, from a filmic and narrative
perspective. My third favorite is Passion of Anna, which may
be the most experimental.
- Hunger (Henning
Carlsen, 1966).
- Levoton Veri (Teuvo
Tulio, 1946).
- Loving Couples (Mai
Zetterling, 1964).
- The Man Who Cut His Hair
Short (André Delvaux, 1966)
- Raven's End (Bo
Widerberg, 1963)
- Torment (Alf
Sjöberg, 1944).
- Turks Fruit (Paul
Verhoeven, 1973).
Russian (Language) Films (in progress)
- Ascent (Larisa
Shepikto, 1977).
- Come and See (Elem
Klimov, 1985). One of the most disturbing war films I have seen,
about a Belarussian boy who tries to join a makeshift army of
Partisans, as Germans lay seige on villages of farmers. Hundreds
of Belarussian farming villages were burnt to the ground during
the war, and this film serves as a horrifying memorial.
For other films that depict WWII from a child's perspective, see
Clément Forbidden
Games and Rosellini's Germania: Anno Zero, which contains extensive
footage of the devestation post-war Berlin.
- Dzhamiliya (Irina
Poplavskaya, 1969).
- The Eve of Ivan Kupala
(Yuri Ilyenko, 1968).
- The Lonely Voice of Man
(Alexander Sokurov, 1987).
- Mirror (Andrei
Tarkovsky, 1975). If you can endure plotless films, this
is my favorite. Tarkovsky's father was a famous Russian
poet, and this film is like a piece of poetry (in also features
poems by Tarkovsky's father and a cameo from his mother).
Mirror manages to have
vastly more narrative depth than most films despite the fact
that it doesn't have a linear plot. Instead, it is a loose
assembly of memories. Tarkovsky is an amazing director,
and this is his most personal film. I am also fond Nostalghia, Solaris, and Andrey Rublyov.
These are slow-paced films, but they are completely absorbing
and highly rewarding. The most accessible Tarkovsky may be
Ivan's Childhood, an
early film about the horrors and heroics of war.
- Soy Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov,
1964). This Russian/Cuban co-production was a total
failure when it was released. Too Russian for Cuban
audiences, and too artistic for the Russians, in fell into
obscurity for many years. But it is one of the greatest
movies ever made: a visual poem about the Cuban revolition that
has some of the most innovative editting and stunning camerawork
that I have ever seen. Kalatozov's other great movie is The Cranes are Flying; it
is a stunning and tragic love story set during the Second World
War. Though less ground-breaking than Soy Cuba, it offers another
opportunity to revel in Sergei Urusevsky's incredible
cinematography.
Czech Films (in progress)
- Closely Watched Trains (Jirí
Menzel,
1966).
This
Oscar-winning
film
is
a
classic
of
the
Czech
new
wave.
It
is
the
amusing,
and
ultimately
moving,
story
of
a
young
railway
dispatcher
who
is
trying
to
lose
his
virginity,
set
against
the
backdrop
of
the
German
occupation.
It
is
interesting
to
compare this film and those of Wajda to earlier depictions of
the war in Eastern European cinema, which are often feel more
like artistically elevated propaganda. The crowning
acheivement in this genre may be Grigori Chukhrai's unabashedly
sentimental Ballad of a
Soldier from 1959. Chukhrai's story is morally
black and white, and its protagonist, a young farmer turned
soldier, is the personification of decency. Menzel's
protagonists are bumblingly human, in comparison, and Wajda is a
master of the anti-hero.
- The Ear (Karel
Kachyna, 1970).
- Fruits of Paradise
(Vera Chytilová, 1970).
- Loves of a Blond (Milos
Foreman,
1965). A sensitive portrait of a young factory worker (the
sister of Foreman's first wife) and the vile men that she
encounters. A landmark of Czech new wave. Loathsome,
lusty men are also a theme in Foreman's Fireman's Ball and in the psychedelic romp, Daisies, by Vera
Chytilová. There was clearly a feminist streak in
Czech cinema at the time.
- Marketa Lazarová
(Frantisek Vlácil, 1967).
- Martyrs of Love
(Jan Němec, 1967).
- The Shop on Main Street
(Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, 1965).
- Squandered Sunday
(Drahomíra Vihanová, 1969).
Polish Films (in progress)
- Ashes and Diamonds
(Andzej Wajda, 1958). A entertaining, wartime, anti-hero film,
which might be watched along side The Wild One for an interesting
comparison. Ashes is
part of a series of war films, that includes Wajda's spine
tingling Kanal, about
a group of resistence fighters who must hide in the sewers in
order to escape the encroaching Germans. My second
favorite Wajda, though, is Innocent
Sorcerers. Also of interest are Wajda's Man of Marble, a film about
the making of a film about a the making and unmaking of a
communist hero, and Gates of
Paradise, based on a novel that consists of one long
sentence.
- Barrier (Jerzy
Skolimowski, 1966)
- Diabel (Andrzej
Zulawski, 1972).
- Iluminacja (Krzysztof
Zanussi, 1973).
- Knife in the Water
(Roman Polanski, 1962). Great Polish period Polanski--a
psychological drama set in a small boat on the open sea.
The jazz sountrack by Krzysztof Komeda is also worth the
price of admission. Polanski's made some great films
after leaving Poland, including The Tenant and, of course, Rosemary's Baby. My
second favorite is Repulsion.
- Mother Joan of the Angels (Jerzy
Kawalerowicz).
Yugoslavian Films (in progress)
- Dancing in the Rain
(Bostjan Hladnik, 1961).
- Man is Not a Bird (Dusan
Makavejev,
1965). Sylistical original Yugoslavian film about a worker
who falls for his landlord's young daughter. The camera
work is occasionally stunning, the sub-plots are engrossing, and
the performances are compellingly understated. But the
great strength of this film comes from its less conventional
elements, including the performance of a hypnotist and the
orchistration of Beethoven in the lead protagonist's
factory. Makavejev's film The Love Affair is also highly worth seeing,
though somewhat less innovative in narrative and style.
- The Promising Boy
(Misa Radivojevic, 1981). One of my favorite punk rock
movies. Also a tribute to Phineas Gage.
- When I Am Dead and Gone (Živojin
Pavlović, 1967).
- Young and Healthy As a Rose
(Jovan Jovanovic, 1971).
Hungarian Films (in progress)
- Merry-Go-Round
(Zoltán Fábri, 1955).
- The Red and the White (Miklós
Jancsó, 1967).
- Werkmeister Harmonies
(Bela Tar, 2000). An odd and oddly enthralling film by one of
Hungary's greatest directors. A simple town collapses into
paranoia and chaos when a giant wale is trucked in as a
traveling public spectacle. The beautiful long shots in
high contrast black and white will stay with you forever.
Other Eastern
European Films (in
progress)
- The Color of Pomegranates
(Sergei Parajanov, 1968). Perhaps the most
aesthetically gratifying film ever made. Every
frame is almost overwhelmingly beautiful. The film
is a biography of the great Armenian troubadour, Sayat Nova,
thought it would be difficult to decipher his life-story from
the series of cryptic and haunting images that fill the
screen. The Color of
Pomegranates is innovative is almost every respect: the
camera is still in each shot, there is no dialog, and one actor
plays many different parts (male and female). For a more
accessible but equally rewarding film, see Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors.
Parajanov's genius was too much for the Soviets: after Pomegranates was made, he
was sentenced to the gulag on trumped up charges.
- The Big Green Valley
(Merab Kokochashvili, 1967).
- Kaïrat (Darezhan
Omirbayev, 1992).
- The Goat Horn (Metodi
Andonov, 1972).
- Lived Once a Song Thrush
(Otar Iosseliani, 1967).
- Pirosmani (Giorgi
Shengelaya, 1969).
Greek and Turkish Films (in progress)
- Lily of the Harbor
(Yorgos Javellas, 1952)
- Time to Love (Metin
Erksan, 1965).
- Young Aphrodites
(Nikos Koundouros, 1963).
Sub-Saharran African Films (in progress)
- Black Girl (Ousmane
Sembene, 1966).
- Touki Bouki (Djibril
Diop Mambéty, 1973).