My Top Ten Films of 1965

This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.

The Agony and the Ecstasy - Like most costume dramas of the era, "The Agony and the Ecstasy" was designed to be a spectacle. However, this one had more high-minded ambitions with its documentary elements and art history framing device. It also, unexpectedly, featured an unlikely comic duo in the form of Charlton Heston's Michelangelo and Rex Harrison's impatient Pope Julius II. Critics of the time complained about its relatively slow pace, but the film certainly got across the grand scope of Michelangelo's passionate ambitions and the enduring beauty of his creative accomplishments.

Bunny Lake Is Missing - Otto Preminger was an eclectic director, but his real forte was a good psychological thriller. "Bunny Lake" is one of his best in this vein, hiding the psychopath in plain sight and wringing chills out of very simple situations and environments. Preminger's London, shot in black and white, is a cold and alienating place. He's able to make familiar playground equipment look sinister, and children's rhymes sound absolutely monstrous. And even so many decades later, his cat-and-mouse games are perfectly played, and still able to generate plenty of visceral tension and terror.

The Collector - An absorbing thriller that achieves maximum emotional effectiveness by letting its horror premise play out very slowly. A madman kidnapping a girl and holding her in captivity is a familiar plot, but seeing how the characters' relationship develops over days and weeks proves absolutely enthralling. It's impossible not to pity Terrence Stamp's deeply disturbed criminal, even as we're also rooting for Susan Eggar to escape from his clutches. I especially admire the film's restraint in using fairly limited violence and treating the subject matter seriously. The tragedy hits so much harder as a result.

For a Few Dollars More - The second film of Sergio Leone's influential "Dollars" trilogy is my favorite for its simmering revenge story and particular mix of performances. I like Lee Van Cleef better as a shady good guy, and partnered up with Clint Eastwood's nameless bounty hunter. Klaus Kinski has a memorable supporting turn as the hunchback, and Gian Maria Volonte is a perfectly despicable villain. I confess that spaghetti westerns aren't generally to my taste, but this one has strong characters, and a satisfying story with a good emotional throughline. Also, I love the Ennio Morricone score.

Le Bonheur - Agnes Varda presents a portrait of lovely domestic bliss, full of warmth and color and brightness. Then she digs into the relationship of the main protagonists, showing how the couple's happiness is predicated on totally different assumptions - and a completely unequal power dynamic that renders one of them easily expendable. The verdant aesthetic choicess paired up with a troubling narrative generate some stirring proto-feminist vibes. Of all of Varda's films, this is easily her most effective example of style conveying message, and most cinematically exuberant and beautiful.

The Knack ...and How to Get It - A Richard Lester romp that functions as an experimental film, a sex comedy, a satire on gender relations, and a snapshot of the British sexual revolution. Coming on the heels of "A Hard Day's Night," "The Knack" makes use of sketch humor, absurdity, farce, and a good amount of camera trickery. Following the exploits of two would-be lotharios, the film is still remarkably relevant for its biting depiction of the male id and the eternal search for easy gratification. Full of energy and youthful verve, it always moves quickly and never seems to run short on ideas or irreverence.

Red Beard - Akira Kurosawa made a medical drama starring Toshiro Mifune, their last great collaboration before they famously fell out. It's humanist drama of the highest order, instilling lessons about medical ethics and social responsibility to our protagonist, an arrogant younger doctor with lofty ambitions. Episodic in structure, and sprawling in construction, the film unfolds like a great novel, telling smaller human stories that all illustrate a common theme. And Mifune's Akahige is one of cinema's great medical curmudgeons. He's as effective here as he is in any of his samurai and warrior roles.

Repulsion - My favorite Roman Polanski film is an unusually intense psychological thriller about a girl in isolation who becomes mentally unhinged. Catherine Deneuve delivers a great performance that turned her into an international star, but the real fireworks came from Polanski's depiction of her character's deteriorating psyche through physical manifestations - the corridor of hands, the cracks in the walls, and of course the sinister strangers at the door. The mixture of horror and fantasy imagery, the art direction, and the soundscapes were groundbreaking at the time of release, and still raise chills today.

The Saragossa Manuscript - This Polish fantasy film has a gimmick that has almost never been repeated - nesting multiple stories within one another in a Russian doll structure. The stories themselves are simple and unspectacular - mostly based on medieval folk tales - but there's something uniquely gratifying about seeing them told in this manner. The finale where we reach a long string of payoffs, one after another, delivers its own special kind of thrill. Director Wojciech Has was known for his Surrealist ideas and use of dream logic, which is reflected by this beautifully executed experiment in cinema.

The Sound of Music - Finally, one of the great movie musicals ever made is "Sound of Music," with Julie Andrews at the height of her musical powers, and a Rodgers and Hammerstein soundtrack that remains iconic. It's the prime example of a stage musical that was vastly improved by its adaptation to the big screen. Shooting much of the film in Salzburg and the Alps breathed so much life into the production. The beautifully staged musical numbers, the greatly expanded score, and several darker interludes all serve to make "Sound of Music" a far more resonant and joyously vital film experience.
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