Continuing the great film debate

Pete Hoskin

By way of getting the ball rolling, here's a list of films which would stand a chance of getting into my own personal top 50 (which the Spectator list wasn't!), that I originally posted on Roger Ebert's blog:

Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade, 1915)
7th Heaven (Frank Borzage, 1927)
L'argent (Marcel L'Herbier, 1928)
The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin, 1932)
The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932)
Wooden Crosses (Raymond Bernard, 1932)
Young Mr. Lincoln (John Ford, 1939)
Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942)
They Were Expendable (John Ford, 1945)
Canyon Passage (Jacques Tourneur, 1946)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949)
Whisky Galore! (Alexander Mackendrick, 1949)
The Flame and the Arrow (Jacques Tourneur, 1950)
Panic in the Streets (Elia Kazan, 1950)
Chikamatsu monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954)
Track of the Cat (William A. Wellman, 1954)
Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955)
Night of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957)
Horror of Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1958)
Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
This Sporting Life (Lindsay Anderson, 1963)
Daisies (Vera Chytilova, 1966)
Marketa Lazarova (Frantisek Vlacil, 1967)
Targets (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968)
Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973)
O Lucky Man! (Lindsay Anderson, 1973)
Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978)
A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991)
Satantango (Bela Tarr, 1994)
Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997)
Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)
Atanarjuat (Zacharias Kunuk, 2001)
Elephant (Gus Van Sant, 2003)

clive

Eyes Wide Shut.....oh dear oh dear

Where on earth can we see Les Vampires?

For the sheer joy of cinema I agree with your inclusion of Signin' in the Rain but what about Cinema Paradiso?

On a continuing Italian theme what of The Leopard?

Pete Hoskin

Clive: you can pick up 'Les vampires' on DVD, here:

http://tinyurl.com/nptyy4

Sir Graphus

I'm waiting for the 1st pleb to write "what, no Shawshank?"

But this is the Spectator and we expect better.

Edward Mancey

Ill admit, I am suprised that my two favourite movies, the big lebowski, and the day the earth stood still made neither list

Andy Carpark

Wot, no Notting Hill? (joke)

Rashomon (1950)
Dead of Night (1945)
Gaslight (1940 - NOT 1944)
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Even Dwarves Started Small (1970)

diadora dave

what, no Shawshank?

Proud to be a pleb, "Sir" Graphus.
If it's culture wars you want, then bring it on.

THX1138

While is was in LA over the summer I discussed movies a lot including with a few industry insiders. The industry is worried that it might be over for drama on the big screen and that TV and HBO in particular has captured the market for quality drama from film. Where is the Hollywood drama movie in the last few years that had the quality or cultural resonance of The Wire or Mad Men for instance? - They just don't exist

With film audiences getting younger and the costs of making and marketing movies getting higher and quality drama doing so badly at the BO look at the recent BO disaster's of State of Play and Public Enemies both of which weren't bad movies and had big stars but were ignored by cinema audiences, the Execs I spoke to might be right.

Hollywood movies may just become increasingly dominated by horror, slacker comedy, rom com's franchise movies (New moon is going to be huge) & big summer Sci-FI tent pole movies. The opening weekend and twitter effect is the judge of success, it's bound to lead to narrowing of choice and risk taking by the studio's. If I was investing $200 million in a movie I'd want to narrow the odds too.

If this is the case perhaps it will leave more room for more quality drama from outside the studio system but that will always be niche but I think we will increasingly see Hollywood abandoning this genre to TV. HBO is spending a reputed $200 million on it's new WW 2 series "Pacific" following a band of Marines from island to island in the Pacific I can''t wait and as their model is based on much more stable annual subscription not on the fickle opening weekend like a movie and advertising like a traditional network all they have to do is keep making quality product and people like me will keep subscribing buying the box sets on amazon and the plasma & surround sounds will keep humming.

THX1138

My wife thought that the list was very male what about a few Rom Com's?

It might not be my favourite film but for it's genre When Harry Met Sally is a perfect film.

I'm also struggling to to see how you could have missed the Coen's out of your top 100 movies.

The Bellman

Very few comedies up there, but surely *Airplane* must be in with a good shot. A fantastic score, terrific, well-judged performances, and just very very funny.

I also rate Southern comfort (1981),a Vietnam allegory set in the bayou, with a group of National Guardsmen being killed one by one by local Cajuns they've picked a fight with. Sort of The Blair Witch project meets Platoon and Deliverance. But good.

Hysteria

Cane Mutiny (Bogart)
Where Eagles Dare (Burton)

cuffleyburgers

Brief Encounters
Goldfinger
Breakfast at Tiffanys
Pulp Fiction
1 million years BC (Only joking)

Who or what is Shawshank? (I really am a pleb!)

Sir Graphus

"Shawshank", Mr Cuffleyburgers, is an absurdly sentimental assembly of cliches; a prison drama / unbreakable spirit of man / feel good film which steals the plot from "The Count of Monte Christo".

It's actually a reasonable film, but for some reason, loads of people think it's one of the best films ever made, and call it harrowing and triumphant. To think this, one has to be extremely credulous, limited of imagination, and be the type of person who laid flowers outside Buckingham Palace when Diana died. I've used the term "pleb" to shortcut all this.

Pete Hoskin

Andy Carpark: now that's a great five-point list. 'Even Dwarves Started Small' is one of the great subversive classics. But I think 'Bad Day at Black Rock' is the pick of the bunch - serially underrated and important, hard-hitting subject matter too. Oh, and that fight in the bar!

Marbury

No Altman? I'd plump for McCabe and Mrs Miller.

Also: Some Like It Hot, Philadephia Story, Bringing Up Baby...and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

There's a lot of rock in your lists; not enough pop.

Sir Graphus

You have certainly picked some eccentric choices.

1. Manhattan is a great film indeed, but Annie Hall is even better. At least Allen doesn't have a ludicrously young girlfriend.
2. Pinocchio is great from an adultâ™s perspective, but children enjoy Peter Pan more (which has a depth of its own).
3. All the Westerns you mention are unmissable, but some of the Sergio Leone man-with-no-name quartet deserve a mention.
4. Fitzcarraldo is better than Apocalypse Now, in the whole journey-up-a-river/man-playing-God genres
5. There is enough food for discussion here without you deliberately including the awful Starship Troopers & Eyes Wide Shut to wind us up, and to a lesser extent the unexceptional Barry Lyndon.

So, head above the parapet, take pot shots at my selection (especially those Shawshank lovers who fancy a bit of revenge). The list may be restricted by the fact that I have a proper job and hence donâ™t have time to watch obscure Japanese, Polish etc etc films that proper critics find so compelling.

Airplane
Annie Hall
The Big Sleep
Brighton Rock
Casablanca
Chinatown
Doctor Strangelove
Fargo
Get Carter
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
The Jungle Book
The King of Comedy
Little Big Man
The Matrix
M*A*S*H
Monty Python's Life of Brian
National Lampoon's Animal House
Peter Pan
Psycho
Raging Bull
Schindler's List
Star Wars (just the 1st 1, ALL the rest have been rubbish)
The Third Man
Toy Story
When Harry Met Sally

Keith Money

Consigned to outer darkness by having our English edition superceded by the Australian version, I for one never even knew about the Film supplements. Unbelievable! Life never gets any easier, that's for sure. Is it my imagination, or does no-one mention Gone With The Wind ? Whatever you think of it, you can't stop watching it, if it happens to be running ... Good to see you finally mention Chinatown and Some Like It Hot. But where is Joe Losey? My own favourite is The Go-Between, a flawless capsule of Edwardian England with as memorable cast as you could ever find, and Dominic Guard as the boy is just remarkable. For war movies, Peter Weir's Gallipoli is heart-rendingly perfect in every possible way; quite wonderful. Kazan's East of Eden had a HUGE effect on my generation, and not many movies do that. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth produce flawless light comedy, which is a whole art in itself. The style of The Innocents would probably not be understood by class-free youngsters of today, but that film was a microcosm perfectly trapped, cinematically. As for Peter Pan: whose Peter Pan? Surely not Disney's travesty? The best by far is the 2003 production which was genuine enchantment with an astonishly fine Peter – which is surely the acid test. Garbo's Camille – well, Garbo's anything, really. Best single shot? Vivien Leigh's Lady Hamilton running through the upstairs villa arcade. Fabulous stuff. Oh well ... Heigh ho! Nice to have caught up – eventually.

Hurricane

"Amazon Women on the Moon"

Best movie of all time.

'nuff said

ME

Not a Herzog film on the list, so it can't be complete. Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo for starters could replace a number of films on either list (especially Starship Troopers - good. grief.)

USC Trojan

"Jaws" 1986? How about 1976.

"Manhattan" isn't even Allen's best film; ditto Scorcese's "Taxi Driver."

Pretty pretentious list.

Kyle Smith

At least three film critics have won Pulitzer Prizes. They are, in addition to Ebert, Stephen Hunter and Joe Morgenstern

petert toal

It's a short list:
Caddyshack
Animal House
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Stripes

PLM

At least one of the commenters mentioned Casablanca! What about Gunga Din, Local Hero, Beat the Devil and Importance of Being Earnest (Asquith version, not the latest Eurotrash).

Pete Hoskin

USC Trojan: thanks for spotting the Jaws typo - don't know how that crept in there. Have corrected now, but worth noting that it's 1975 not 1976.

Kyle Smith: And thank you for picking me up on that. I meant "first" not "only" but, for some reason, the latter came out. Again, have corrected that now.

ME: I do rate Herzog, but not as much as most other folk. Oddly, too, my favourite of his films are things like 'Even Dwarves Started Small' and his documentaries, including the serially underrated 'Wheel of Time'.

Surprised you're the first to pick me up on 'Starship Troopers'. I have a hard time explaining that one! Long story short: I can never resist Verhoeven's brash, arrogant style. And I love how this adaptation is actually in dialogue with its source material - responding and counteracting the points and philosophical generalisations it makes. May go into this in a future Cappuccino Culture post.

PLM

At least one of the commenters mentioned Casablanca--good! What about Gunga Din, Local Hero, Beat the Devil and Importance of Being Earnest (Asquith version, not the latest Eurotrash).

west coast yank

Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman
On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando
Red Sorghum with Gong Li

Mark

No Dr Strangelove? Criminal.

Weir

Sullivan's Travels is not better than The Lady Eve.

Grande illusion is not better than Regle de jeu.

Manhattan is not better than Annie Hall.

Sunset Boulevard is not better than The Apartment.

morphybum

sorry, but what is 'cultural resonance'? and in what way does "mad men" have it?

and where ids Les Enfants du Paradis, for heaven sake. It is like compiling a list of greatest novels and leaving out proust.

loved the shawshank redemption by the way.

Morphybum

there must have been some error, some slip up, an administrative lapse. I cannot find This is Spinal Tap in your top 50. shurely shome mishtake?

THX1138

morphybum "cultural resonance" in that everyone is talking about it and for instance Banana Republic have brought out a range of clothes inspired by Mad Man & Tory Politicians are comparing British Inner Cities to the Wire.

ndm

I think the great Italian* film is:

The Tree of Wooden Clogs (Ermanno Olmi, 1978)

* Filmed in Bergamasque not Italian.

Morphybum

Ah, right, so the greatest cultural resonance would be that of the X factor, then? and i understand that liam gallagher has now launched his own range of clothes - does that make him culturally resonant as well? Where does that leave, say, William Trevor or Stephen Isserlis?

THX11138

Morphybum - Just a pharse I used ...Why do care so much ?

Or perhaps more importantly why should I care that you care ?