A fan of Yes, Minister, were you? Brilliant show.
Huge fan of Yes, Minister. And Yes, Prime Minister. But also of The Madness of King George.
That’s an interesting comment about actors, Windwalker. I hear mention of some who have done really good films and really bad ones. I saw Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland and thought he was great. But I haven’t seen any of the others. It seems then that there are actors who can act well and then others who can act and select the right vehicles.
Can anyone suggest actors who are good at selecting their films and therefore almost anything they are in is worth seeing?
People who never seem to make a bad movie, in fact if I see one I’ve never heard of I’ll give it a try anyway:
The aforementioned Deppster
Sam Neill
John Turturro
Steve Buscemi
Mark Wahlberg
Leonardo DiCaprio
George Clooney (although half his roles are just for fun - the Ocean’s franchise)
They have all made things that don’t interest me but as I say if they are in something I don’t know to be bad I’ll give it a try.
You are most welcome lynne. If and when you run out of ideas, I’ve got a whole lot more. You seem to be getting a good start now, and a wide enough selection to find out what your tastes are.
As for Woody Allen - I love the guy. Especially his films from the late 70’s to the early 80’s like Love and Death, Annie Hall, Manhattan, and my favorite Stardust Memories that really represents some of his best camera work, editing, writing, casting etc. Beautiful. Of his later works Denconstructing Harry (1997) is probably the best film within a ten-year span on both sides. Small Time Crooks and Celebrity are quite charming as well, and I really enjoyed Match Point. Not as much as the comedies, though.
Three masterpieces you must see:
The Night of the Hunter: A dark fable about a relentless psychopath terrorizing a couple of children. Robert Mitchum is very chilling as the menacing preacher and his “Love/Hate” knuckle tattoos have been endlessly referenced in pop culture. The cinematography is gorgeous and expressionistic with exaggerated camera angles and sharp, dark shadows used to portray the fear and turmoil of its characters. Charles Laughton’s one and only directorial effort.
Rear Window: Tied with North by Northwest as my all-time favourite Hitchcock movie. A prime example of what Hitchcock called “pure cinema.” This refers to techniques for telling a story in a way that couldn’t be accomplished in any other medium. For instance, pay attention to how the opening camera pan around Jimmy Stewart’s apartment gives us a huge amount of background info about who he is, what he does, what happened to him, and why he’s cooped-up at home. A lesser director might have conveyed this info through voiceover narration or expository dialogue, but Hitchcock pulls it off with a 30 second camera pan.
The movie is also fascinating study in voyeurism with Stewart as a proxy for the audience. We’re placed in the situation of watching him watch his neighbours which increases our empathy for the character yet raises questions about our own experience.
Almost all of Hitchcock’s movies are essential viewing but RW is an excellent place to start.
Double Indemnity: The ur-film-noir? Its certainly an early exemplar of all the classic noir traits: Morally bankrupt characters cooking up complicated schemes in highly-stylized, hard-bitten dialogue, on smoky, atmospheric sets. The plot, a smoking hot femme-fatale manipulates an insurance agent in an elaborate scam to kill her husband and collect the insurance, is fascinating enough but it’s also interesting to watch it as an exercise in style especially given how highly influential that style became.
Thank you for those, Hodge. They have been included in my course guide.
It is interesting how much I have learnt just watchihng those I have already from recommendations on SD and to me directly. I had read reviews of No Country For Old Men, without it meaning a great deal. I was unaware of the Coen brothers. On recommendation, I watched Fargo, which I really enjoyed, and suddenly the same reviews meant a great deal more. A little bit of knowledge in this field seems to open up a lot more understanding.
I have also discovered that my library has access to a huge collection of videos and DVDs, so I have access to everything mentioned. I am also finding Roger Ebert’s essays fascinating. Thank you again to everyone who has recommended stuff!
Lynne
Check out Memento
It’s essentially a detective story. The lead character has a brain injury and cannot form new memories. If you keep him talking long enough, he’ll forget who you are and what you were talking about. He has to write things down. Important things, he has to tattoo them on himself. He’s trying to find the man who murdered his wife and gave him the brain injury.
The story is told in 5 minute increments and backwards. The last 5 minutes are shown first, the first 5 minutes are last.
A really interesting film and some strong acting.
I remember someone talking about a film which was told backwards, and I didn’t understand how that was possible. But in 5 minute segments, that makes sense. It’s in the course guide!
I have the kettle on ready to make a strong cup of tea to have with rye toast and jam while watching Casablanca. Regular TV seems so dull compared to all the gems I have ready to watch. William Goldman’s Adventures In The Screen Trade arrived today, so that is ready for my bedtime reading.
I noticed that the library has some documentaries - the one I ordered was Stanley Kubrick - A Life In Films. Are there other documentaries which you think would be worth me seeing to get a better appreciation of films?
Unfortunately (except I happen to love my job) my publisher thinks I start editing my next book from next week, and then start on the following one. Summer holidays over. But the film appreciation course will go on - just a little slower.
Lynne
You mean documentaries about films & filmmaking? - Absolutely. I recommend Herzog’s My best fiend about his professional relationship with actor Klaus Kinski. I suspect it will make more sense if you have seen some of the films they have made together, like Aguirre - wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, and Woyczek. If you like Fitzcarraldo (and I’m sure you will), the documentary Burden of Dreams by Les Blank is a wonderful and very entertaining portrayal of the shooting of that film, almost as fascinating as Fitzcarraldo itself.
Another tip I should add is try to acquire your film appreciation skills watching DVDs.
I have a life long love of movies that I acquired simply by watching lots of them. When I was a kid in Canberra there were only 2 single screen cinemas and usually only 2 films showing. I saw many good ones at the cinema but most I caught on TV. And I loved all the right movies. I remember sitting around on Sunday afternoons watching things like Casablanca (I loved Bogart), The Maltese Falcon, 3:10 To Yuma and I would talk to friends about them and they didn’t know what they were.
I learned to sit there and just get taken away by the whole experience. Even today when the curtain parts and the lights dim for the feature I get a little thrill. And I give myself over to it. Even if I am seeing a movie for the purpose of writing a review I try to just let the filmmakers have free play and suspend my critical functions until later. It is like watching a magician. There is no magic, so given sufficient thought you can work out how any trick was performed, but why bother…just let him try to entertain you. You have the rest of your life to work out how the piece of paper was restored.
I have friends, better schooled in the movies than I, that I won’t attend a movie with because they have become insufferable bores, intent on finding fault and punctuating my watching with editorial sighs, groans and mutterings. For me every movie starts off rated 100% and I will decide how far it fell after it’s done.
I think the one “clean” showing, where the movie is taken at face value further informs any subsequent watching when you pick it apart. You can better understand the structure of the movie, the characters, the themes and the way the filmmakers have told the story.
This is more than I intended to post but I really do think it is important. I still love the movies - even the flawed ones, the lame ones, the stupid ones and sometimes the bad ones, but it easy to turn movie watching into the equivalent of some required subject that you once had to do, if you start watching them without any joy.
Thank you for the documentary recommendations, Panurge. I am enjoying reading the William Goldman book so much, I am sure I will enjoy the documentaries you suggest.
I think this is a most astute comment and timely warning. You have probably realised that I I have a tendency to turn everything into an academic study! I went to the theatre to see I Am Legend yesterday and just sat back, let the dark enclose me (and the other half dozen people in the theatre) and just go with it. Then reflect on what I had read about it afterwards. It was really great.
I am amazed how quickly I am recognising names which meant nothing to me before I started this plan. I made a comment today about a director and then an actor and other projects that they had been involved in and was asked if I was an expert on films! I very quickly confessed it was pure coincidence that they’d mentioned two names I had some across in my two weeks of intense film wacthing.
A lot of people will see a classic film and then lament “I wish I could have seen that in the theater on the big screen” but they never can or will, unless there’s a theater nearby that regularly shows old movies.
You have a chance (or will, very soon) to see a future classic of the magnitude of older classics such as The Godfather or Chinatown or even Citizen Kane, when it opens in Australia in a couple of weeks.
Don’t pass it up. If you do and see it later on a small screen and it hits you what you willingly passed by, you’ll never forgive yourself.
See a classic of filmmaking, a classic of character study, a classic of acting (ESPECIALLY a classic of acting!) while it’s playing first-run in the theater, a chance you just don’t get very often.
See There Will Be Blood.
I missed the edit window but I meant to add that Daniel Day-Lewis is an actor who always chooses good films to appear in. Some are better than others but they all have something worthwhile to them and even the least of them has one thing that’s worth seeing: Daniel Day-Lewis, one of the finest actors of our time. There Will Be Blood is the ultimate master class in acting, though it has a multitude of other incredible factors (cinematography and music being foremost).
I also wanted to add, when you go exploring Werner Herzog, look for BOTH the film Fitzcarraldo AND the behind-the-scenes documentary Burden of Dreams. You can enjoy the film without the documentary (Fitzcarraldo is one of my favorite films) but to watch Burden of Dreams AFTER having seen Fitzcarraldo (don’t watch BoD first) will give you one of the best insights into the madness and glory of pure filmmaking.
A truly brilliant crash course on film is to be found in A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. Not only is it entertaining without being boring–he shows you hundreds of movies, but only in short clips, so even the attention-spanned-challenged can handle it–it’s another brilliant checklist of movies to get from the library or whatever, to follow up on on your own. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
I can’t hold to just one or two films, but I’ll try to keep it under a dozen, and I’ll shy away from films with explicit violence though that will force me to leave out Raging Bull, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, The Godfather I and II, and Die Hard, all of which are worth seeing (but does reduce the options).
*La Battaglia di Algeri* (The Battle For Algeirs):
If there is one film you need to see in terms of its impact on modern filmmakers, it is this one. Algeirs is very much in the established tradition of cinema verte, but it is far more than the sometimes specious or inaccessible French New Wave films; it is a visceral, immediate, personal viewpoint of revolt and resistance by the Algerians from their French colonial masters. (It is also highly relevent to anyone today who wants to understand why we haven’t–and won’t–“win” in Iraq.) The “terrorist” bombing and French retribution scenes are memorable for how starkly they reveal the aftermath of such attacks, but the most haunting scenes are that in which an Algerian who wanders into the French Colonial quarter is persued (despite doing nothing bad), the rebels hiding out in a bolt hole, knowing that they’ll be blown up if they don’t come out, and especially the ending scene with the Islamic Algerian women making their creepy, otherworldly sounding “la la la la la”. It is a haunting movie, and also one which has manifestly influenced filmmakers in Hollywood and elsewhere; John Frankenheimer (himself a great filmmaker at his peak, and although it’s not on my list of recommendations his commentary track on Ronin is essentially a fantastic two hour lecture on how to make an intelligent action-thriller) cited this as his favorite and most influential movie. Watch all the extras on the Criteron Edition DVD set. There is some violence (and a torture scene which pales in comparison to the kind of thing you see on the typical episode of “24”) so it make be a little problematic, but well worth seeing.
*Ladri Di Biciclette* (The Bicycle Thieves):
De Sica was a noted director in the neo-Realist tradition (as was Gillo Pontecorvo above), and this is unquestionably his masterpiece, a story about a man in post-war Rome who hangs everything on the bicycle he needs when he is given a job pasting up movie posters. When the bicycle is stolen, he travels the city with his son looking for the bicycle, eventually finding the thief but not being able to recover the cycle. I know the description doesn’t sound like much, but De Sica puts you in the man’s position, his fear, shame, and anger at being imporverished, and as using non-professionals in all acting roles removes the emphasis from emoting for the sake of acting toward a straightforward telling of the story and the characters behind it. No real violence here.
The Third Man:
This is the most famous and (IMHO) the best of three films that were a collaboration between British filmmaker Carol Reed and writer Graham Greene. It’s sort of the post-war complement to Casablanca; against Casablanca’s tinny American optimism The Third Man offers a prescient post-war pessimism that became all too real. Set in the ruins of bombed out Vienna, control of which is split between the Americans, the British, the French, and the Russians (“All strangers to the place and none of them could speak the same language, except a sort of smattering of German,”) already vying for possession of Europe. In the middle is ingenue writer of cheap Westerns, Holly Martins (played brilliantly by Mercury Theater player Joseph Cotton), who comes to Vienna on the promise of world, only to find his benefactor (Harry Lime, also brilliantly played by Mercury founder Orson Welles) apparently killed only a few minutes before his arrival. Finding the details of his death inconsistant (the titular “third man”) he is determined to uncover the mystery, albeit in his bumbling, spreche keine deutsch way, despite being repeatedly warned off by British Maj. Calloway (yes, brilliantly played by Trevor Howard) and unrequited affector for Lime’s cast-off lover Anna (Alida Valli, who makes Ingrid Bergman look like a cheap soda shop girl). Where Casablanca is full of witty but ultimately specious dialogue and cartoon charactures of people struggling with a plot that has more logical holes than a French Morocco police report, The Third Man is fully of carefully applied symbolism, moral ambiguity, a charming but sociopathic villian, and a love interest who is prepared to think for herself and stands by her principles even when they’re wrong. Never mind the plane flying out in a foggy Van Nuys night and Humphrey Bogart confiding to Claude Raines that, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,”; the ending scene in The Third Man (I won’t spoil it for you) is, despite the lack of dialogue (or perhaps because of it) one of the most perfect in cinema history. Reed’s use of shadow and cocked camera angles–clearly borrowed from German Expressionalism, but Reed gives it his own trademark–increases the alienation and claustrophobia, and Martins is such a clueless boob you can’t help but want him to succeed, even though you know it isn’t going to end well for him. Anton Karas’ zither-based score is simultaneously both haunting and comical, mocking in the same way that Vienna and it’s depressed cynicism (and everyone in it) mocks Martins. If you want to know how to tell a story that is larger than its own plot, and use symbolism effectively without turning the story into a pedantic lesson, this is the film you should use as your baseline. Not too much violence; most is implied, and the shooting in the end is done in the standard Studio Era “show without showing” way.
Rear Window:
You wouldn’t think a movie about a photographer, bound to a wheelchair with a broken leg, trapped in a stuffy one room apartment with only a center courtyard and his neighbors’ windows to look into, could possibly be all this thrilling, but this is one of the best pure thrillers ever made. It’s arguable whether this is Hitchcock’s best movie, but of his best it is certainly the most accessible. Although the plot is about a potential murder (which not only occurs off-screen but in fact even the protagonist only suspects it from sparse, unsubstantial clues), Hitchcock keeps the focus squarely on L.B. Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart in an atypically non-square role) and his would-be fiancee Lisa (Grace Kelly), whose domestic issues are mirrors by the visible actions of Jeffries’ neighbors. Insurance company nurse Stella (on of Themla Ritter’s unfortunately few roles) provides ascerbic commentary and acts as Jeffries’ foil, stealing the best lines in the process. (About disposal of the corpse in the bathtub: “Must 'ave splattered a lot.”) Hitchcock makes the viewer into the same kind of voyeur that Jeffries is, staring into the screen as he stares out the window, and he’s so used to inaction and speculation that when something actually happens it is harrowingly suspenseful. This is what a “date movie” ought to be. All the violence is implied, except a struggle in the end (and an abortive date rape scene).
The Apartment:
I understand some people don’t like this film because it sets up as a standard-issue romantic comedy and then turns into something else, but that is quite intentional. Billy Wilder (also responsible for film noir masterpiece Double Indemnity, alcoholic expose The Lost Weekend, and top shelf screwball comedy Some Like It Hot) sets up Jack Lemmon as prototypical “Baxter” (no, seriously, his name is C.C. Baxter), a schlub working in the actuarial department of a faseless insurance company who has found a way to win appeasement of his superiors by loaning them his apartment for trysts. When the big boss, Mr. Sheldrake (played by Fred MacMurray, demonstrating is true talent at playing complete sleezeballs) finds out, he then secures the apartment for his own exclusive use, which involves an affair with the object of Baxter’s unvoiced affection, elfin elevator operator Fran Kubelik (played by Shirley MacLaine before plastic surgery and cracktastical belief in reincarnation). This plays on for about the first four reels as a well-done, but pretty standard rom-con (complete with characters who are all pretty much complete creeps if you think about it, including Baxter) and then suddenly deconstructs into a drama where the reality of all of this bed-swapping and musical chairs becomes as cracked as Fran’s compact mirror. The shift in tone is admittedly (but intentionally) jarring, which is what I think puts people off, but in fact it pulls the viewer out of this farcial, manufactured world and into something more like reality, where the characters have real, unseen motivations and even the tacit approval of letting yourself be railroaded into loaning your apartment for affairs has very real consequences. If you’ve ever watched a movie like The Philadephia Story or any of those Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan films and thought to yourself, “I wonder if anybody else thinks that it’s creepy that she’s stalking him/he’s lying to her/there’s no way this would ever work in the real world”, this is your film; it rips open the mechanics underneath romantic comedies and exposes them for what they are. No violence other than an attempted suicide and single, well-deserved punch.
Rashomon:
Akira Kurosawa made so many good films, and so many that directly influenced the 'Seventies generation of filmmakers like Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Scorsese, et cetera, that it’s hard to pick out just one, but Rashomon is perhaps the most influential. It’s less than an hour and a half, but in that time it packs in one story, told five ways from the perspectives of different players, about the murder (or perhaps suicide) of a samauri and the rape (or perhaps willing intercourse) of his beautiful young wife by a thief (a young and frenetic Toshiro Mifune). The story is simple, but it casts doubt not only on our objective viewpoint, but on the biases and self-interested prejudices we bring into viewing the story. The cinematography is simultaneously simple and sophisticated, and wait for the “twist” in the end that counters the increasing pessimism in the film. The violence here is bloodless, just some swordfighting.
Vozvrashcheniye (The Return):
Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2003 debut is a story about two boys raised by their mother and grandmother, who are suddenly confronted with their mysterious father’s return and invitation for a weekend fishing trip. It rapidly becomes apparent–meetings with strangers, a boat trip out to an isolated island–that he’s involved in more than just fishing, and the rough, tacturn lessons he teaches the boys about dealing with life’s problems (theft, a stuck car, sulky complaints) only serve to alienate the boys and set a menacing tone. An American viewer will expect this to explode into some kind or another of thriller, but the plot revelations in Vozvrashcheniye are of a deeper, more ambiguous nature than abusive parenting or pursuing villians. The cinematography of the film is starkly stunning, but this is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen for setting tone and creating plot revelations that are both shocking and yet perfectly organic. No real violence except for a few slaps.
Seconds:
Director John Frankenheimer is probably more widely revered for The Manchurian Candidate (a great satire, but somewhat flawed as a movie), but this one is pitch perfect, about a middle-aged banker trapped in a stiffling suburban lifestyle with an unappealing, matronly wife, who is offered the opportunity of a second chance at life by a shadowy organization. After agreeing he is remade into a young, virile artist (Rock Hudson) with a Malibu beach house and hard-partying friends; little does he know what he’s bought himself into. The science fiction elements of the transformation are downplayed in favor of more existential horror; Wilson has made his “deal with the devil” and he’s now just as trapped in his new life as he was in the old one. James Wong Howe’s black and white cinematography is as memorable as anything else in the film, enhancing the increasing paranoia as Wilson discovers that he’s not alone. No violence per se, though the implications are pretty disturbing.
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind:
I’m a big fan of Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich and Adaptation (the latter is a great one if you want to understand the process and pressures of being a writer) but I can understand why they’re not to everyone’s taste. Eternal Sunshine, however, should have wider appeal, though it still requires careful (and probably repeated) attention by the audience to piece together it’s story, which is essentially the tale of a somewhat dysfunctional romatic relationship with Clementine (Kate Winslet) told in reverse as it is being erased from the memory of Joel Barrish (played by Jim Carrey in a role in which is is amazingly not annoying). It may sound like Momento minus the murders and mystery, but in fact it is much more intimate and connected; while it’s a nice piecework puzzle of a plot, it also gives real characters who are both flawed and appealing. Some of the most amazing aspects of the film are the scenes which seamlessly integrate CGI and standard visual effects to create the illusion that Joel is back in his childhood, or that memories are being destoryed. A parallel story is played out among the technicians and doctor trying to erase Joel’s memory, and the post-erasure experiences of Joel and Clementine surround the emotional core of the disappearing memories. No violence to speak of.
Heavenly Creatures:
Peter Jackson is best known for the Lord of the Rings movies and his remake of King Kong, but I think he has yet to surpass this early movie about two young girls in repressed 1950s New Zealand who have an “unhealthy” relationship (the psychiatrist can bearly bring himself to say, “lesbian”). In fact, the two girls (played by Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey) are probably more drawn to each other by being social outcasts with fertile imagination, sharing a creation they call the Fourth World (“It’s sort of like heaven, only better, because there aren’t any Christians,”) and an enthusiasm for Italian operatic tenors. A seperation forced by a recurrance of tuberculosis merely serves to intensify their relationship, and after the threat to send one abroad (ostensibly because of “family issues” but really to split them up) is invoked, they plot to kill one mother, then steal silver to pay for world travels in some dream almost as farcial as their created world. Jackson cut his teeth with CGI here, and it’s used to great effect, especially the Clamation-esque figures in the royal court of their imagination. Jackson makes the adults seem so draconian, self-absorbed, and hypocritical (even though the mother they plot to kill is perhaps the least of them) that its easy to be drawn into the girls’ world. The violence occurs off-screen, but in the bookending scenes the girls are covered in blood.
Others you should definitely check out: John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate, Billy Wilder’s Ace In The Hole, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows (not too violent, although there is a disturbing execution scene), Martin Ritt’s adaptation of Le Carre’s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb, Mike Nichol’s The Graduate, Paul Newman in Hud (also directed by Ritt) and Stewart Rosenberg’s Cool Hand Luke, Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, and Bryan Forbes’ Seance On A Wet Afternoon.
I know this is far more than what you asked for, but I hope this was as helpful to you as it was enjoyable for me. 
Stranger
This was wonderfully helpful and I think the fault is with my OP, not your response. I put limits on because I thought the question was so big that I didn’t want to put people off by asking for too much. That was silly. I should have left it to the Dopers to decide! I also think I made a mistake putting the bit about violence. I now want to revisit the limitations I put on myself due to past nightmares. I may find that maturity has given me a different perspective. So I will be looking at every film mentioned. I am perfectly capable of closing my eyes or pressing the Stop button should the need arise.
So I really appreciate the effort you have put into such a thorough reply and look forward to following through. The size of my cut-and-paste course guide grows daily!
Thank you.
Lynne
Thank you for all your comments. Recorded as always. I am intrigued by this reference - how did you see a film that hasn’t been in the theatres yet? Then I checked iMDB. Did you really go to the effort to see if it had been released in Australia yet?
Or is it still in the theatres in America on first release and you have seen it there?
I will see it when it is released here in a few days.
Lynne
I believe Irreversible is also ran backwards. However, when I first heard of this movie was about how my friends had left the movie, and one had been sick. There is an incredibly violent and nasty section to it…
I’ve never watched it for that reason, but might eventually do so…
It’s been out in America for several weeks. It started as a limited release, in New York and Los Angeles, then other cities were gradually added. It hasn’t opened in any other countries yet, but soon will. I heard it opens in Melbourne the 9th(?). Please post in the There Will Be Blood thread after you’ve seen it. It’s such a uniquely American movie that I’m very very curious as to how it will play in other countries. However, Australia’s “Wild West” history has a lot in common with the American 'Wild West" so I’m hoping it will play well there. You have your own historical epic coming up with Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, which I can’t wait to see.
By the way, you’re not neglecting Australian movies, are you? A lot of really fine films have come from your country, starting, but not ending, with Rabbit-Proof Fence.
Edit to add, I forgot to answer your question. Yes, I asked someone from Australia on anther message board when There Will Be Blood opened in Melbourne, and the 9th is what I was told. I almost got theaters and showtimes but I thought I might start to scare you away. 
So Lynne-42 have you watched any of these films and what did you think?