"Only in spirit," says the entity. "But, actually, the story comes out against the abuses."
Pat mulls this for a moment. "Hmm. Well, what else is in the issue?"
The entity gets testy. "I didn't beam in to talk to you about your magazine," it says. "I have an important message about FBI associate direc--"
"Come on," says Pat. "What piece comes after the cover story?"
The entity looks uncomfortable. "It's a warm profile of-- um, of George McGovern."
"Come again?"
"McGovern. And the campaign he ran in 1972. It-- Where are you going?"
But Buchanan has walked directly through the sputtering spirit, laughing at the lies of the creature from the future. Within half an hour he is downing his third glass of whiskey and convincing himself the encounter never took place.
(The McGovern profile, written by the libertarian journalist Bill Kauffman, is well worth reading, though it might confuse any reader who believes the whole country can be reduced to the colors red and blue. The same goes for Scott McConnell's paleoconservative appreciation of Eugene McCarthy, published in the same issue.)
THE END IS NIGH: I'm going to stop the movie lists there. For the record, though, my favorite film of 1935 is Bride of Frankenstein. Lots of people assume there's a queer subtext to that movie, because director James Whale was openly gay. I think they're right, but everything I've seen on the subject goes in the wrong direction by looking for parallels between the persecuted monster and the persecuted homosexual. My theory is more elaborate, and (he added modestly) more interesting. I doubt I'm the first person to conceive of it, and someone must have written a paper about it at some point; if not, I guess I'll have to write it myself. For now I'll just say that when Pretorius cries out "The bride of Frankenstein!" as the monster's mate comes to life, he's not referring to the lady creature. He's referring to himself.
My favorite film of 1925 is either Buster Keaton's Seven Chances or the Lon Chaney Phantom of the Opera. My favorite film of 1915 is probably Raoul Walsh's Regeneration, which isn't actually that great a movie, which might help explain why I'm not coughing up a top ten list for 1915.
1. I Know Where I'm Going! Written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
A romantic comedy with something pagan simmering beneath it.
2. Ivan the Terrible, Part One Written and directed by Sergei Eisenstein
Stalin had an infamously ambivalent attitude towards this film and its sequel: He endorsed the first installment but suppressed the second, after he realized the parallels to his career weren't so flattering after all. Both pictures are deliberately, grandly overstylized, like an opera or a superhero comic.
3. Scarlet Street Directed by Fritz Lang Written by Dudley Nichols, from a play by Andre Mouezy-Eon and a novel by Georges De La Fouchardiere
A noir remake of Renoir's La Chienne.
4. Open City Directed by Roberto Rossellini Written by Sergio Amidei and Federico Fellini
A ground-eye view of the resistance in World War II.
5. Isle of the Dead Directed by Mark Robson Written by Josef Mischel and Ardel Wray
One of several excellent horror movies produced by Val Lewton in the 1940s, each one drenched in archetypes and atmosphere. This one illustrates the so-called Thomas Theorem: "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences."
6. The Picture of Dorian Gray Directed by Albert Lewin Written by Lewin, from a novel by Oscar Wilde
Wilde inspired so many bad movies -- delicate, middlebrow piles of reverence whose creators never forgot they were adapting a canonized Great Author -- that it's a special pleasure when someone does justice to one of his tales.
7. The Body Snatcher Directed by Robert Wise Written by Philip MacDonald and Val Lewton, from a story by Robert Louis Stevenson
Another Lewton production. You just can't go wrong with him.
8. Le Vampire Directed by Jean Painleve
Painleve got his start in the surrealist movement, then moved into making more subtly surreal science films. This documentary is one of his best: It explores not just the behavior of the vampire bat but the legend of the creature that gave it its name. It even wanders into potentially dangerous waters, considering where and when it was made, by showing the animal stretching its wing in a way that looks a lot like a Nazi salute.
9. Children of Paradise Directed by Marcel Carne Written by Jacques Prevert
"Novelty is as old as the hills."
10. Detour Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer Written by Martin Goldsmith, from his novel
A classic B-movie about a loser, a woman, and a couple of corpses. I like the theory that the whole tale is one man's dubious alibi for crimes he really did commit, and that the film's inconsistencies and glitches are actually just the holes in his story.
Also, January's print edition of Reason is now online, so those of you who don't subscribe to the mag can now read my brief squib on A Force More Powerful, a video game that simulates nonviolent revolution.
Finally: CounterPunch ran another one of my music lists this past weekend.
1. East of Eden Directed by Elia Kazan Written by Paul Osborn, from a novel by John Steinbeck
The best movie James Dean ever made. Kazan's best picture, too.
2. Diabolique Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot Written by Clouzot, Jerome Geronimi, Frederic Grendel, and Rene Masson, from a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac
The Hitchcockian thriller that inspired Columbo and, less happily, a terrible remake with Sharon Stone.
3. The Trouble with Harry Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Written by John Michael Hayes, from a novel by Jack Trevor Story
The most underrated movie in Hitchcock's canon. It's also the most appealing portrait of rural life I've ever seen, which surely says more about me than it says about the picture.
4. Smiles of a Summer Night Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman
At first glance the phrase "life-affirming Bergman comedy" looks about as plausible as "Pauly Shore's four-hour Shakespearean drama." But that -- the Bergman comedy, not the Shore epic -- is exactly what this is.
5. The Night of the Hunter Directed by Charles Laughton Written by James Agee, from a novel by Davis Grubb
"Ah, little lad, you're staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand?"
6. Pather Panchali Directed by Satyajit Ray Written by Ray and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, from a novel by Bandyopadhyay
I saw this one in a film class when I was 18. N.B.: I think I was the only one who liked it.
7. One Froggy Evening Directed by Chuck Jones Written by Michael Maltese
This feels like folklore, doesn't it? The legend of the singing frog?
8. Night and Fog Directed by Alain Resnais Written by Jean Cayrol
There's such a glut of Holocaust movies out there, and so many of them are essentially trite, that it's a relief to watch a documentary that really engages what happened and what it means to remember it.
9. The Man from Laramie Directed by Anthony Mann Written by Philip Yordan and Frank Burt, from a story by Thomas T. Flynn
Lear in the old west.
10. Ordet Directed by Carl Dreyer Written by Kaj Munk
A rarity: a religious movie that emerges from deep faith, not greeting-card sentimentality.
WE GET THE FUNK: A while back I quoted Joe Henry and David Cantwell's noble attempt to define the blues impulse, the gospel impulse, and the soul impulse, and I asked my readers what the funk impulse might be. Immediately after I posted that, I realized that the correct answer would have to be some version of George Clinton's free your mind and your ass will follow. So the prize goes to Eric Dixon of Shrubbloggers, who came closest with this: "Instead of looking within, or to a higher power, or to the person next to you, you look to the ass of the person next to you and realize how much better it might look if it were a-shakin'."
1. Repulsion Directed by Roman Polanski Written by Polanski, Gerard Brach, and David Stone
The most claustrophobic and horrific of Polanki's claustrophobic horror movies.
2. The Saragossa Manuscript Directed by Wojciech Has Written by Tadeusz Kwiatkowski, from a novel by Jan Potocki
A story within a story within a story within a...
3. The Battle of Algiers Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo Written by Pontecorvo and Franco Solinas
Torturers battle terrorists in colonial Algeria. In the '60s, would-be Guevaras watched this to teach themselves revolution; nearly four decades later, the Pentagon screened it for tips on fighting terror. Whatever else they found in it, both groups got to see one hell of a movie -- a film so utterly unflinching in its amorality that it feels more like a dispassionate documentary than a propaganda picture.
4. The Loved One Directed by Tony Richardson Written by Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood, from a novel by Evelyn Waugh
The Duck Soup of pet cemetery movies.
5. A Game with Stones Written and directed by Jan Svankmajer
Many surrealists have directed abstract films without narratives, but only Svankmajer made movies as rich and engaging as the paintings of Dali, Ernst, and Magritte. The stones in this film arrange themselves into simple shapes, into more intricate patterns, and eventually into human beings who swallow each other. Sorry if that description sounds a little abstruse: It isn't easy to describe the plot of a Dali poster either.
6. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold Directed by Martin Ritt Written by Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper, from a novel by John Le Carre
A spy movie that plays like a film noir. In Le Carre's bleak story, the intelligence agencies of the Cold War aren't entirely separate -- they're more like competing forces within one vast corrupting system.
7. Simon of the Desert Directed by Luis Bunuel Written by Bunuel and Julio Alejandro
A meditating monk faces off with the devil. This being Bunuel, there's no reason to assume the devil will lose.
8. Chimes at Midnight Directed by Orson Welles Written by Welles, from plays by William Shakespeare
Falstaff was always more interesting than Henry. Now he gets to take center stage.
9. Looking for Mushrooms Directed by Bruce Conner
There's actually four versions of this psychedelic travelogue: a silent 8mm loop first shown in 1965; a 16mm version set to the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows," first screened in 1967; a slowed-down 1996 version -- my favorite of the lot -- set to Terry Riley's "Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band"; and, in 2001, an interactive installation that lets you move the film at your own speed. The only one of those I haven't seen is the 1965 edition, but by the arbitrary rules I've set for these lists, this is a 1965 movie. Go figure.
10. Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte Directed by Robert Aldrich Written by Henry Farrell and Lukas Heller, from Farrell's novel
Frequently written off as a retread of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, this over-the-top gothic soap opera is a fine film in its own right.
And speaking of arbitrary rules: In theory, I'm assigning these movies to the year in which they were first screened, not the year they went into general American release. But when I realized I had left The Secret of Roan Inish out of my 1994 list last year and Swept Away... out of 1974's top ten, I bent the law to include them this time around. Also, I've secretly authorized a warrantless wiretap on your phone. Sorry about that.
SELF-PROMOTION: My latest Reasoncolumn is about Sandy Springs, the Georgia town that privatized everything -- or did it? (Cue eerie music.) Geoff Segal has written an interesting response at the blog Out of Control, which I in turn replied to at Hit & Run.
Also, last weekend CounterPunch published another one of my music lists, alongside playlists from Phyllis Pollack and Jeffrey St. Clair.
Cantwell: In his book A Change Is Gonna Come: Race, Music And The Soul Of America, Craig Werner builds on [Ralph] Ellison's idea to describe what he terms the gospel impulse. The gospel impulse starts at the same place as the blues -- it still faces and expresses the pain and limitations of the world -- but it also believes that in finding something larger than ourselves, human beings can, working together, change the world.
Henry: I think those guys are on to something there!...[T]he gospel impulse is driven by the same kind of earthly passion, but you're looking outside yourself instead of only looking inward. And maybe soul music on its own comes from the same [gospel] impulse but, instead of looking within or to a higher power, you look to that person next to you, to love.
A question for my readers: How do you define the funk impulse? The best answer will be published on this here blog, where the other four of you can read it.