The 50 Great American Films 1-5
This is the first in a ten-part series summarizing the greatest 50 films in American history according to me. They are American independent and Hollywood studio films only. I haven't been exposed to many foreign films, but I've seen the American Film Institute's Top 100 movie catalog in its entirety. I've also seen enough other US films to recognize the Institute's mistakes.The AFI list was stocked with too many overwrought, poorly-aged "classics." I like my movies, by and large, to be crisply told, clever, and adult-themed. My list is not hard and fast. It's a capsule of this moment in time. Time that is not measured linearly like an hourglass, but like the tide of the ocean, moving constantly in and out. It would have been a very different list when I was 20 years old, and it will be a very different list when I'm 40.
Unlike Oscar, I'm partial to the funny. A filmmaker doesn't get extra points if the grasp falls short of the reach. There are no points for ambition alone, and no 'A's for effort. If there is a template, it is this: A movie is to be judged, not by what it's about, but how it is about it. Did the director achieve his/her goals? Then, was it meaningful for me?
The films will be presented just five at a time to allow for sober reflection, and they will be presented alphabetically. It is not my wish to pit them against each other beyond this, and it's beyond my ability to even do that. Think of them as 50 nominees for Best Picture, and we all know it's an honor just to be nominated.
If you have favorites- and you do, then I want to hear from you. I want to know where I erred, what I missed, and why your favorite deserves to be here. You won't know all of mine, and I won't know all of yours. Because they are being presented alphabetically, it may take a few days for me to get to your favorite or, likewise, to shun it. Bear with me, and enjoy.
The first five, from A to B...
AIRPLANE! directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker (1980)
It's fortuitous that this is the first movie on the list because it's a microcosm of the Top 50 as a whole. It's smart, energetic, and often been neglected. It's stripped to the bone in length at 88 minutes. There's nothing superfluous here except for the gags, which are strown like confetti at a championship parade. The spoof of disaster flicks lifts, often verbatim, some of the unintentionally funny dialogue from movies like 1957's "Zero Hour:" "We have to find somebody who can not only fly this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner." I don't think it can be overstated how a movie like this, released during a horrendous national movie slump, changed Hollywood for the better. It called moviemakers out on their often ponderous and predictable storytelling. It surely deserves a place on this list. And stop calling me Shirley.
THE APARTMENT directed by Billy Wilder (1960)
Wilder is the American standard of movie comedy since the introduction of sound, and he peaked here, winning the rare triple crown of Oscars- Best Screenplay (with I.A.L. Diamond), Best Director, and Best Picture. The movie told a very contemporary story of America in 1960 during the conflict between Eisenhower sexual repression and Sinatra "Ring-a-Ding-Ding" bachelor freedom. A conflicted corporate lackey, played by Wilder's favorite everyman, Jack Lemmon, loans his apartment out to his superiors for their sexual trysts. Wilder, inspired by the David Lean movie, "Brief Encounter," worked off the notebook idea, "Movie about a guy who climbs into the warm bed left by two lovers." Lemmon falls for the elevator girl at the company, played by a radiant Shirley MacLaine. Fred MacMurray played against his wholesome image from television's "My Three Sons" and Disney's "The Shaggy Dog" as Lemmon's philandering boss.
BEING JOHN MALKOVICH directed by Spike Jonze (1999)
Jonze went down the rabbit hole in this rich and looney masterpiece from the twisted mind of writer Charlie Kaufman. John Cusack is puppeteer Craig Schwartz, who inadvertently discovers a port hole into the brain of actor John Malkovich. The brain acts as a sort of "Back to the Future" magic DeLorean for Cusack, his underloved wife played by Cameron Diaz, and a tart-tongued co-worker named Maxine, played by Catherine Keener. Maxine holds everyone in her wake, and frequently cuts Craig down to the size of one of his marionettes. Maxine: What do you do? Craig: I'm a puppeteer. Maxine: Check.
The movie inspired a faux autobio-pic by Kaufman, "Adaptation," featuring a detailed, behind-the-scenes look at "Malkovich," and Kaufman's 'twin brother/writing collaborator,' Donald.
THE BIG SLEEP directed by Howard Hawks (1946)
At one point during the filming of Raymond Chandler's pulp novel, Hawks sent a telegram to the author asking him to clarify part of his book's convoluted plot. Was the chauffeur murdered or was it suicide? Chandler didn't know. Fifty-eight years later, it still doesn't matter. "The Big Sleep" is about the process of criminal investigation, not the results. It's about the atmosphere of grimy post-war Los Angeles, Chandler's hard-boiled dialogue, and the chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in their first on-screen pairing. Bogart is- now-legendary- detective Phillip Marlowe, a 19th Century man compromised in the immoral underbelly of the new century, asking himself the $50,000 question, "Can I trust this broad?" The question is as relevant today as ever.
BONNIE AND CLYDE directed by Arthur Penn (1967)
I saw "Bonnie and Clyde" in the theater this summer. I'd never seen it on the big screen, but I also realized I had never seen it during the summer. It's a great summer movie. Two gorgeous people are on the road stealing cars and cash, and building a populist legend. You think you're getting a movie-high off the freedom of Miss Bonnie Parker and Mist-ah Clyde Bare-ah, but the noose is gradually tightening around them. The real sense of freedom is coming from Penn, screenwriters David Newman and Robert Benton, producer/star Warren Beatty, and stage actors Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, and Michael J. Pollard. Hollywood was being freed from the moralist Production Code, and some of the greatest artists in America were joining forces on an elaborate, artistic prison break.
"Bonnie and Clyde" is exhilarating, violent, grungy, filled with sex and sexual disfunction, and not willing to pass judgement on its imperfect characters. It hit the American film industry like a hail of gunfire, and succeeded in creating the modern American movie. Penn's Bonnie and Clyde gave their lives for the future of American cinema.
posted by CM @ 5:10 PM
2 Comments:
I can't argue with any of these choices...I've only seen two of them, but those 2 (Being John Malkovich and Airplane!), I think, are worthy of any best-of list. (Chris, nicely done, I like that you remembered the exclamation point after Airplane! The title was Airplane!, not Airplane. That's a way funnier title.)
I wonder how many people have seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is another movie penned by Charlie Kaufmann. It's very similar to Malkovich in style, but seems to aspire to having a little more heart (and heartbreak). It lacks that original, unique energy that Being John Malkovich had though.
Airplane! is simply the best movie ever made. My favorite part can't even be described because it's so dry that I can't do it justice. I laugh hysterically when the pilots take sick and the stewardess goes looking for a doctor among the passengers. An old lady on the aisle pulls her over and whispers, "I think the man sitting next to me is a doctor." And then the camera pans over to Leslie Nielsen, sitting stone faced. The really subtle joke is that he's sitting there with a stethoscope around his neck. Why would he have a stethoscope?! I don't know why it makes me laugh, but it's my favorite moment in any movie.
The working title of Airplane! was "Kentucky Fried Airplane." The three directors had previously made a picture called "Kentucky Fried Movie."
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