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.
Nights of Cabiria - My favorite Fellini film, the one that bridges two eras in his career. The sympathetic examination of the life of a prostitute is certainly in keeping with the aims of the Neo-realist movement, and Fellini pokes fun at religion and the upper classes. Yet Cabiria herself is such a strong, distinct character, her sorrows and joys come across as fiercely personal, and are largely the product of her own determined will and innate weaknesses. Society may be responsible for making a victim of Cabiria, but she'd never let society claim the credit.
The Bridge on the River Kwai - One of the great war epics, that manages to simultaneously be a magnificent spectacle and a great character study of one individual, Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson. I appreciate how even handed the film is, allowing the villain, Colonel Saito, to be sympathetic, where similar characters are often wildly problematic, even today. However, the film really belongs to Alec Guinness, whose "madness" is the tragic result of his own misguided ideals and hubris as much as it is a survival response to being a prisoner of war.
Paths of Glory - But if you want to talk about the madness of war, nobody did it better than Stanley Kubrick. The callous injustice inflicted on the soldiers by the command hierarchy is wrought in the most visceral, unpleasant terms. This has one of my favorite Kirk Douglas performances, as he channels so much impotent frustration and despair in the face of unassailable authority. "Paths of Glory" is remembered for its scenes of ground level warfare, including the famous trench shots, but its touching, humane ending remains its best accomplishment.
Sweet Smell of Success - And here's Burt Lancaster, joining Douglas with another famously outstanding performance that the Oscars inexplicably snubbed that year. Lancaster plays the monstrous J.J. Hunsecker, an unscrupuous newspaper columnist who is the equivalent of the loathsome FOX News hosts who subsist on gossip and insinuations. The subject matter was lurid for its time, but there's barely any physical violence. Instead the film is driven by its style, its percussive dialogue, its intense performances, and the fabulous jazz soundtrack.
A Face in the Crowd - Another premonition of the modern media machine is this Elia Kazan film, that charts the rise and fall of a radio personality, Lonesome Rhodes, who is played by a pre-Mayberry Andy Griffith. It's fascinating to see the folksy charisma of Griffiths weaponized to turn him into a celebrity, and put in stark contrast with the egomaniacal narcissist that Rhodes becomes behind the scenes. The cycles of fame, scandal, and ruin are very familiar, but the cast gives it some real bite. I especially appreciate Patricia Neal as Rhodes' unwitting Pygmalion.
Funny Face - A delightful Stanley Donen musical that pokes a little fun at the publishing industry, the fashion world, and '60s hepcat culture before getting down to the inevitable business of carrying on a romance between Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. The Gershwin songs are so much fun, and Astaire is as dependable as ever, but it's really Hepburn's movie. Her wacky nightclub scene not only shows off her dancing skills, but her talent for physical comedy. She's so magnetic onscreen that the utter mismatch between her and her leading men barely registers.
Twelve Angry Men - Perhaps a little too idealistic and a little too pat in retrospect, this is a fantasy of the United States justice system as we all wish it was - discerning, intelligent, and able to deflate the biases of flawed individuals through collective wisdom. Alas, Henry Fonda's principled juror is the exception rather than the rule, but he presents such an appealing hero figure, it's hard to resist his aura. The film was the cinematic debut of Sidney Lumet, and is still one of the strongest debuts ever made. All he had was twelve people in a room, but the film is as cinematic as anything.
The Seventh Seal - The best known of Ingmar Bergman's films, for its iconic representation of Death, played by Bengt Ekerot. The story is fairly rudimentary - a medieval fairy tale that allows Bergman to ruminate about the nature of man's mortality and existence. However, this was one of the first films where Bergman grappled with the supernatural to such a degree, and got so thematically dark and fatalistic. It feels like the film where Bergman really became Bergman, similar to how Fellini finally became Fellini with "Cabiria" the same year.
Throne of Blood - I love that one of the best film versions of Shekespeare's "Macbeth" is an Akira Kurosawa period film set in Japan and starring Toshiro Mifune. Patterned after a Noh drama, the story of the traitorous, ambitious commander, is reworked for the jidaigeki genre beautifully with the help of a fantastic production design. The Scottish nobles become samurai, and the witches become a sinister forest spirit. Kurosawa and Mifune, however, take some creative liberties to make the proceedings more entertaining, including the thrilling ending sequence.
Kanal - My favorite Andrzej Wajda film is a WWII picture that often mixes genres, veering from war and action into psychological thriller and horror territory on occasion. We follow several members of the Polish resistance who are on the run and hiding from the Nazis in the Warsaw sewers, a nightmare world of shadows and unseen dangers. The film's nihilistic tone and grim outlook didn't go over well upon release, but "Kanal" has become a classic of Polish cinema, and remains a fascinating, disturbing watch.
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