Top 100 Films Wrap Up

The End.

Or something like that. Or not really not at all. It was August 2009 when this list finally got rolling, following several months before that of hemming and hawing over what exactly deserved to make the cut, and here I am, 14 months later, finally putting the finishing touches on this project. A project which was out-dated by September of '09, and would look entirely different if I started from scratch today.

I had finally resolved get to work on the project after graduating from my undergrad at Michigan State. That was the first time I felt I could confidently cobble together 100 films I was passionate enough about to call favorites. I'm relieved that looking back on it no atrocities jump out at me, as I would no doubt recoil in horror at Tristan's favorite films circa 2006 (which was that regrettable period in my life where I knew just enough about movies to think I knew everything, and hell if I wasn't an ass about it too).

But as I said, it's been 14 months, and with so much time passed, I feel it only right to cap off this project with an addendum. Because in that time, I've revisited many films, some which no longer seem worthy of a top 100 (Eraserhead, 8 Women, much as I still love both), others which I was clearly out of my head when I left off (Vertigo, Le Samourai). There's also the directors who I've reconsidered, reassessing my personal preference for their films, however close the call may have been. These days, I'm inclined to rank A Brief Encounter over Doctor Zhivago, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg over The Young Girls of Rochefort, and To Be Or Not To Be over Trouble In Paradise. Finally, there's the new, which are the additions I'm most excited about - essentially the greatest films I've seen over the past few months. This group includes the likes of Dogville, The Red Balloon, The Tales of Hoffmann and Love Me Tonight.

Out with the old and in with the new, then. Here's what I would change, with no guarantee that this won't change again tomorrow.

Out (19)
8 Women
Alien
Being John Malkovich
Belle de Jour
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Clue
Cria Cuervos
Dead Man
Doctor Zhivago
La Dolce Vita
Eraserhead
Masculine Feminine
Onibaba
Peeping Tom
The Remains of the Day
The Silence
There Will Be Blood
Trouble In Paradise
The Young Girls of Rochefort

In (19)
Bad Timing (Nicholas Roeg, 1980)
Branded to Kill (Seijun Suzuki, 1967)
A Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945)
Dogville (Lars Von Trier, 2004)
The Fall (Tarsem Singh, 2008)
Friday Night (Claire Denis, 2002)
Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954)
Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1982)
Love Me Tonight (Rouben Mamoulian, 1932)
Malpertuis (Harry Kümel, 1972)
The Masque of the Red Death (Roger Corman, 1964)
The Red Balloon (Albert Lamorisse, 1956)
The Red Shoes (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948)
Rififi (Jules Dassin, 1955)
Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
The Tales of Hoffmann (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1951)
To Be Or Not To Be (Ernst Lubitsch, 1942)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Thin Man, Porco Rosso, Beau Travail and The Double Life of Veronique would come very, very close.

And with that, I'll declaring all this top 100 listing dormant for a while. With so many other films to catch up on, I should have fuel for a whole variety of listing and film review projects that I've already been tossing around in my head. Thanks everyone for bearing with me through this all and I really appreciate all the comments.

Look for my annual horror movie fest to start generating some reviews here. I've got a couple stored up that I'll hopefully bring you tomorrow.

Top 100 Films - #1

1.

A favorite films list unfolds like a strip tease, the mystery and allure gradually tossed aside as the performer reveals every elegant curve and inescapable blemish. Which means that I’m now standing stark naked, much like you were when you told me your favorite film was Fight Club or Donnie Darko or Boondock Saints or whatever it was that made me nod and pretend I was interested. That’s my roundabout way of saying two things; first that I feel that nothing, absolutely nothing, exposes all my inner-workings quite like Celine and Julie Go Boating does and in propping this up atop my list I’m laying my very soul bare to the uncharted wilds of the internet and the vultures of anonymity that circle high above; second, that I don’t expect any of you to share my enthusiasm. But as long as I have your attention, I’m going to make a case for why – out of thousands of films – it all boils down to this.

Jacques Rivette taps into a state of eternal adolescence, the feeling of childhood before being banished from the Wonderlands, Neverlands and Chucky Cheeses, fueled by curiosity and awe for as long as they linger. Call it nothing short of magic, for that’s exactly what Celine and Julie is; an unexpected and dynamic world that moves from a playful chase down a rabbit hole to a madcap murder mystery, and where two extraordinary girls explore, experiment with, and ultimately make up the rules as they go along.

Unfolding over three hours, vast thematic ground gets covered and never once with an ounce of pretension. Disguises and role reversal are played for laughs, particularly in two hilarious sequences where each girl spends the afternoon impersonating the other, as well as in the manic trade-offs that define the story within the story that consumes the second half. It precisely what a film about the wonder of storytelling ought to be, bursting at the seams with fantasy and intrigue, ever drawing the viewer further into its spell. Like any great storyteller, Celine and Julie are world builders, and we observe them from beginning, watching as a friendship develops and secrets are divulged, following them through the depths of imagination without ever leaving their flat. That the convoluted sense of time and space becomes dizzying by the end is all part of the charm.

And Rivette himself creates something entirely new. Celine and Julie is an unstable, mercurial film, the boundaries of which swell and collapses with the irregularity of Alice biting into her mushrooms, and yet we feel entirely safe, confident that neither the director nor his fanciful heroines will abandon us along the way. Not to lament the philosophies of so many other directors, but Rivette’s optimism is refreshing, especially the idea that passion, friendship, and a little art are all that’s needed to get through the day. Of course, tomorrow the cycle may just start up again, but like Celine and Julie it will begin with the promise of a new adventure, never quite the same as the last.

Top 100 Films - #2

2.

Mythic, reckless and spellbinding, Aguirre: The Wrath of God is everything it claims to be; a tall tale told by an idiot concealing a taller tale from a raving madman, a director’s plagued endeavors to drag cast and crew through the South American heart of darkness to tell the story of a conquistador’s doomed quest for the fabled El Dorado, Werner Herzog’s sound versus Klaus Kinski’s fury. Two parallel legends feeding off each other, creating a haunting cinematic experience the likes of which have never been replicated. You can feel the effects of Herzog’s lunacy, of Kinski’s rage; present on the haggard faces of the cast and in the increasingly delirious visuals. It’s the very thought of impending, inescapable doom, the only thing more terrifying being the man charging into it full speed ahead. There’s a moment where the widowed noblewoman, resigned to fate, elects to march away from the madness into the unforgiving jungle, her actions exercising the only free will she has left; the chance to meet death on her own terms. Without so much as a declaration or an eyebrow raised, she just quietly walks away and disappears, swallowed whole by the jungle and the film itself. A shiver runs down your spine. This is Aguirre at its bleakest and most harrowing.

But not bleak without beauty. Aguirre, for all its insanity, is remarkably intimate. A butterfly lands on the finger of a weary soldier. A native musician repeats a simple, mesmerizing tune on his flute. Herzog on occasion lets his mind and camera wander from the path of despair long enough to capture these rare instances of tranquility, reminders that even when caught up in the most dire of circumstances, we can still make our own kind of peace, if only for a little while. This is why you don’t finish Aguirre feeling drained, but very much alive. In the final legendary moments of the film, Herzog draws back from Aguirre, forsaking him on his raft littered with monkeys and death, and spins the camera in delirious circles around the scene, dancing at last on Kinski’s grave. And right along with that camera, we’re pulled out of the vortex, reminded that we’re still spectators in this horror show, spared like Ishmael on the coffin from going down with the ship. It’s an oddly exhilarating end to the unrelenting descent of Aguirre: The Wrath of God, which comes so very close to claiming the distinction of my favorite film of all time.

Top 100 Films - #3

3.

Never have the elegant and the perverse tangoed so well as they do in Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. On the one hand you have Greenaway’s formalism, Sacha Vierny’s sophisticated cinematography, and the haute drapings of the cast and set. On the other you have a steady stream of vulgarities enacted by the tyrannical louse that presides over the film, Albert Spica, the titular Thief. Played with devilish intensity by Michael Gambon, he holds court over his stately pleasure dome, the cavernous restaurant Le Hollandaise. Spica’s as contemptible a character as there ever was, a grotesque and boorish man who inspires such boundless hatred that no fate could possibly seem nasty enough for him. He runs amok across his restaurant, tearing down or sticking a fork in whoever upsets him, followed dutifully by Vierny’s gliding camera, which seems to indulge him as much as he indulges himself. His presence is positively oppressive: to the viewer, to the kitchen staff, and especially to his put-upon wife Georgina.

The twin pleasures of The Cook, The Thief… are food and sex. The former preoccupies Spica’s mind to the point of madness (virtually all his assertions of dominance involve consumption) while it is the later that his wife turns to for reprieve from his reign of terror. Georgina, the icy and alluring Helen Mirren, begins secretly stealing away from dinner to make mad love to a fellow patron of the restaurant, their relations, like the preserved food surrounding them, always walking a fine line between good and bad taste. Of course, the two specialties of Le Hollandaise are destined to collide, and Spica’s discovery of the ongoing affair sets off an outrageous escalation of events leading to the greatest dish of revenged ever served. The most disturbing thing, and that’s surely saying something, is how sweet the catharsis tastes.

Top 100 Films - #4

4.

A tragic woman pours her soul out in song at a sparsely attended nightclub performance as Naomi Watts and Laura Harring look on and weep. The singer’s emotional investment appears staggering, and that her performance would move any viewers to tears is hardly a surprise. Calling to mind Anna Karina in Vivre sa vie watching Maria Falconetti, it’s a delicate and beautiful moment that underscores the power of art to take root deep in our emotions and speak to our own unique experiences.

That’s when you feel the rug get pulled out from under you. The chanteuse drops to the stage floor in a dead faint and still the song plays on – she’s been lip-synching, it’s all a ruse! – a little blue box opens and suddenly artifice interferes with art. It’s in that moment that Mulholland Dr. starts making even less sense than before, careening into the realm of dreams within dreams and films within films. Two curious girls play a dangerous game of house across metro Los Angeles in which the roles get increasing muddled and we swiftly lose track of whether we’re looking into the dollhouse or looking out. I’ve long since given up my quest for a clear understanding of the film, instead marveling at the divide between those putting on a performance and the often unseen forces that seem to be directing them.

And there’s still the immense pleasure of just surrendering to the whole experience. Just as in the Club Silencio sequence, Mulholland Dr. is fueled by knee-jerk emotional reactions. The botched address book theft and the absurd reaction to an inconveniently timed affair are both hysterically funny, the sapphic romance and unceremonious masturbation session are tailor-made to provoke one way or another, and the entire episode at Winkies is nothing short of the scariest scene of the last decade. The film seems to owe as much to the body genres as it does to noir. So mesmerized are we by our search for meaning in these bizarre visions that we don’t put a second thought to just how manipulated (and I say this in the best way possible) we have been, nor would it ever occur to us that maybe, just maybe, that little blue box serves no greater purpose than the man behind Winkies – to ignite an instinctive emotional reaction, in this case one of sheer bewilderment. Hats off then to David Lynch, who may have just found a way to reveal a trick without shattering the illusion, because whether art or artifice or anything in between, Mulholland Dr. resonates time and times again.

Top 100 Films - #5

5.

There’s really no precedent for a story as linear as Stalker’s to appear to take such mighty turns. It’s science fiction devoid of technology, a horror film minus the monsters, and a road movie without any detours; two and a half transfixing hours of mounting tension and dread, punctuated with a handful of extraordinary shots that amp up our astonishment in ways only the best plot twists ever could. The first comes early on, as the titular Stalker leads the Professor and the Writer into the fabled Zone, a mysterious and dynamic space that houses at its core the answers to everything. In an endless tracking shot, the travelers leave behind the bleak, colorless world of man and enter the lush, hallowed ground of the Zone. The transition to color is so subtle that by the time it hits you, a gasp in awe can hardly be helped. Such remarkable shots are prone to happen in Tarkovsky films, and nowhere are they as abundant or as staggeringly beautiful as in Stalker.

That doesn’t make this easy viewing; in fact, I can’t think of a more grueling film experience. If Stalker is a horror film, then it’s because it confronts the viewer with the most terrifying prospect of nothingness. Chilling as the Stalker’s cryptic tales and the overgrown landscapes they traverse are, the real terror lies in the threat that their search for meaning will turn up empty. The Professor clings to his knowledge, the Writer to his legacy, and the Stalker to is family’s meager existence, and although deeper motivations abound, there’s a mutual drive to make sense of it all, and for the Stalker in particular, to justify all human suffering. They risk all manner of peril within the Zone for such basic answers, but one gets the sense that their journey is doomed, and the proceedings will reduce anyone to a hollow shell, sapped of all life and hope.

But true to form, Tarkovsky leaves us with a final shot that turns, tosses, and topples the tables in such a way that an entire meaning of the film can be amended in seconds. Simple, haunting and unexpected, its power and effect are unparalleled. Quite suddenly the most emotionally draining of films has a fire lit under it, and as the final punctuation mark, it’s the one that seems most definitive. It’s an extraordinary ending, but with Tarkovsky’s track record and the mesmerizing journey that precedes it, anything less would be a disappointment.

Top 100 Films - #6

6.

Cluttered, campy, and garish, The Scarlet Empress is the cinema of obsession, like a monument built by a mad tyrant to his beloved queen, or rather, a mausoleum raised around her while she still draws breath. That may scare you off, or it may fascinate you; either way, I thought it only fair to start with a warning. Those who require a polished script or nuanced performances will recoil in horror, but for the happy few who can be tantalized by the play of light and shadow or mystified by a prolonged shot of a face, The Scarlet Empress is a sacred object.

Its allure derives from the subject herself, the luminous Marlene Dietrich, adorned and adored so lavishly by director Josef von Sternberg that she becomes our obsession as much as his. Well, almost. Theirs was the greatest collaboration in all of cinema simply because he was willing to move mountains for her, and she had a face that was etched in stone. The Scarlet Empress is the pinnacle of their seven collaborations, the upper limits of their excesses and fetishization before the constraints of the Production Code rendered them impotent. Dietrich plays Catherine the Great, and von Sternberg chronicles her rise to power in explicit, if not historic, detail. He surrounds her by the grotesque – twisted statues looming over stony halls, a macabre wedding feast of gut-wrenching proportions, her mad man-child husband played with childish glee by Sam Jaffe – and amidst the dismal surroundings, Dietrich positively glows. Von Sternberg films her through lace and flame, preserving her image so we can venerate it through the ages. It’s as if he made the film solely as a shrine to her, and my appreciation for it comes not from any distinguished narrative, but from a fascination with this artifact of ancient Hollywood, crafted by two of the most decadent personalities of their time.