What -- did you think I was going to carry this on til I'd reeled off the best magic lantern shows of 1780? You have to stop these things somewhere, and 1930 is a perfectly cromulent place to cease. For the record, my favorite film of 1920 is Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and my favorite film of 1910 is Emile Cohl's The Automatic Moving Company. But I haven't seen enough good movies from either year to produce a proper top 10 list. We'll pick this up again in December, when it's time to run through the best pictures of 2001.
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1930, it gave its Best Picture award to All Quiet on the Western Front, an adaptation of an antiwar novel by Erich Maria Remarque. The book is better than the movie, but the film is still good; you'll find it in the honorable mentions list. Meanwhile, here's 10 pictures I like better:
1. Earth Written and directed by Alexander Dovzhenko
It was supposed to be a Soviet propaganda picture calling for the collectivization of agriculture, but Dovzhenko got away with making something much more interesting. It's lyrical, sometimes funny, more surrealist than socialist, more pagan than political; the propaganda parts play like tongue-in-cheek interludes. Stalin objected strenuously. There would not be many more movies like this as long as he was around.
2. People on Sunday Directed by Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer Written by Billy Wilder and Curt Siodmak
One of the last great silent pictures, and one of the first great efforts by a gang of young filmmakers who would soon be fleeing Germany for America. Besides Wilder, Ulmer, and the Siodmak brothers, the future Hollywood aces include the photographer, Fred "Oklahoma!" Zinnemann.
3. Swing You Sinners! Directed by Dave Fleischer
The Fleischer brothers made many weird, wild, and funny cartoons in the pre-Code era. This was one of the weirdest, wildest, and funniest of them all.
4. Le Roman de Renard Directed by Wladyslaw Starewicz and Irene Starewicz Written by I. Starewicz, Roger Richebé, Jean Nohain, and Antoinette Nordmann
Reynard the Fox, a trickster figure from French folklore, stars in a batty stop-motion masterpiece.
5. Animal Crackers Directed by Victor Heerman Written by Morrie Ryskind, from a play by Ryskind and George S. Kaufman
"Pardon me while I have a strange interlude."
6. L'Age d'Or Directed by Luis Buñuel Written by Buñuel and Salvador Dali
In art, like this list, this film falls somewhere between Animal Crackers and Blood of a Poet.
7. Under the Roofs of Paris Written and directed by René Clair
An early sign that filmmakers could figure out how to use sound without forgetting everything else they'd learned about their craft. This has all the fluidity of the best silent movies -- but it's a musical.
8. A Propos de Nice Written and directed by Jean Vigo
Like Salt for Svanetia, listed one notch below, A Propos de Nice is a radical documentary. But Nice was made by an anarchist, not a Leninist, and it has far more respect for the ordinary people onscreen.
9. Salt for Svanetia Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov Written by Kalatozov and Sergei Tretyakov
The anti-Earth: Communist propaganda proclaiming how wonderful it is that the Bolsheviks are bringing a backward village into civilization. It's a lie, but it's an artful lie; you can damn the picture's politics while admiring the talent on display.
10. Monte Carlo Directed by Ernst Lubitsch Written by Ernest Vajda with Vincent Lawrence, from a play by Hans Mueller
The Lubitsch touch makes its true debut. This isn't Lubitsch's first sound picture, but it's the one where he masters sound so completely that it's hard to imagine he ever tried to make a movie without it.
Honorable mentions:
11. The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg) 12. Blood of a Poet (Jean Cocteau) 13. Borderline (Kenneth MacPherson) 14. Romance Sentimentale (Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov) 15. Crabes et Crevettes (Jean Painlevé) 16. Mechanical Principles (Ralph Steiner) 17. The Big House (George W. Hill) 18. All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone) 19. It's a Bird (Harold L. Muller) 20. Night Owls (James Parrott)
Of the films of 1930 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in Jean Grémillon's La Petite Lise and Laurel & Hardy's Brats.
Also, my feature from February's print edition of Reason -- an extended remix of my Web column on why the Republicans aren't going to defund NPR -- is now online as well.
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1940, it gave its Best Picture award to Rebecca, a Daphne du Maurier joint. That one is in my top 10 list, but it isn't at the apex:
1. The Philadelphia Story Directed by George Cukor Written by Donald Ogden Stewart and Waldo Salt, from a play by Philip Barry
There's a lot here to admire, but the high point comes with Katharine Hepburn wandering around drunk after dark.
2. His Girl Friday Directed by Howard Hawks Written by Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, and Charles Lederer, from a play by Hecht and MacArthur
"Walter, you're wonderful, in a loathsome sort of way."
3. The Bank Dick Directed by Edward F. Cline Written by W.C. Fields
"Shall I bounce a rock off his head?" "Respect your father, darling. What kind of a rock?"
4. A Wild Hare Directed by Tex Avery Written by Rich Hogan
The ur-text for the Bugs Bunny cycle.
5. They Drive By Night Directed by Raoul Walsh Written by Jerry Wald and Richard Macaulay, from a novel by A.I. Bezzerides
The first great truck-driving movie.
6. Rebecca Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Written by Robert E. Sherwood, Joan Harrison, Philip MacDonald, and Michael Hogan, from a novel by Daphne du Maurier
The only Hitchcock movie to win a Best Picture Oscar. That says much more about the Academy's prejudices than it does about the film's place in the director's body of work. But if it isn't Hitchcock at his very best, it's still a fine Gothic romance, always atmospheric and often creepy.
7. Christmas in July Written and directed by Preston Sturges
One of Sturges' sweeter comedies, but it has a sardonic bite.
8. The Grapes of Wrath Directed by John Ford Written by Nunnally Johnson, from a novel by John Steinbeck
Ford made genre films and he made "prestige" films. For the most part, the prestige pictures aren't especially good, but this one's an exception: It may get a little heavy-handed at times -- feel free to wince during Henry Fonda's final monologue -- but it's filled with vivid moments, particularly the stunning dust-bowl sequence at the start.
9. Dance, Girl, Dance Directed by Dorothy Arzner Written by Tess Slesinger and Frank Davis, from a story by Vicki Baum
The flipside of all those Tex Avery cartoons about the Big Bad Wolf. (Someone should screen it with Red Hot Riding Hood as the opening short.) There's more emotional depth here than you'll find in the average low-budget melodrama, with an unexpected feminist edge.
10. Contraband Directed by Michael Powell Written by Emeric Pressburger with Powell and Brock Williams
If Peeping Tom is Powell's Psycho, then this is his 39 Steps.
Honorable mentions:
11. Foreign Correspondent (Alfred Hitchcock) 12. The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch) 13. The Thief of Bagdad (Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger, Tim Whelan) 14. Pinocchio (Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske) 15. Seven Sinners (Tay Garnett) 16. The Great McGinty (Preston Sturges) 17. Swinging the Lambeth Walk (Len Lye) 18. The Westerner (William Wyler) 19. Tarantella (Mary Ellen Bute, Ted Nemeth) 20. The Ghost Breakers (George Marshall)
Brilliant Sequence in an Otherwise Unexceptional Movie: Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland kiss in a cab, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante.
Of the films of 1940 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in Travelling Actors.
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1950, it gave its Best Picture award to a backstage drama called All About Eve. That one made it to my honorable mentions list, but it didn't break into the top 10:
1. Rashomon Directed by Akira Kurosawa Written by Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto, from two stories by Ryûnosuke Akutagawa
Four versions of the same event. Each account seems to circle closer to the truth, Kane-style, but by the time it's over you'll probably doubt that you could ever arrive at the full facts.
2. Harvey Directed by Henry Koster Written by Mary Chase, Oscar Brodney, and Myles Connolly, from a play by Chase
"I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it."
3. Sunset Blvd. Directed by Billy Wilder Written by Wilder, Charles Brackett, and D.M. Marshman Jr.
Part jet-black comedy, part backlot noir. If they burned all the movies about making movies, this is the one I'd miss the most.
4. Where the Sidewalk Ends Directed by Otto Preminger Written by Ben Hecht with Victor Trivas, Frank P. Rosenberg, and Robert E. Kent, from a novel by William L. Stuart
"I didn't know a guy could hate that much. Not even you."
5. Gone to Earth Written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Where fever dream meets fairy tale. The images of nature here are so vivid and haunting that I'm not sure if they're there to underline the characters' passions or if those passions are just a temporary extension of the landscape.
6. In a Lonely Place Directed by Nicholas Ray Written by Andrew Solt with Edmund H. North, from a story by Dorothy B. Hughes
This and Sunset Blvd. would make an interesting double bill.
7. Night and the City Directed by Jules Dassin Written by Jo Eisinger, from a novel by Gerald Kersh
Not to be confused with The Naked City, which is also by Dassin but not nearly as good.
8 House by the River Directed by Fritz Lang Written by Mel Dinelli, from a novel by A.P. Herbert
A low-budget Southern Gothic noir. It didn't make many waves when it came out, and Lang later said he didn't care for it. I think it's one of the best movies he made in America.
9. Stromboli Directed by Roberto Rossellini Written by Rossellini, Art Cohn, Sergio Amidei, G.P. Callegari, Renzo Cesana, and Félix Morlión, from a story by Rossellini
The picture that gave us Isabella Rossellini...eventually.
10. The Asphalt Jungle Directed by John Huston Written by Huston and Ben Maddow, from a novel by W.R. Burnett
Another film noir. By my count there's six of them in this top 10 list and two more in the runners up. So that's at least one genre that was flourishing in 1950.
Honorable mentions:
11. Los Olvidados (Luis Buñuel) 12. Rabbit of Seville (Chuck Jones) 13. Winchester '73 (Anthony Mann) 14. All About Eve (Joseph L. Manckiewicz) 15. D.O.A. (Rudolph Maté) 16. Story of a Love Affair (Michelangelo Antonioni) 17. Eaten Horizons (Wilhelm Freddie, Jørgen Roos) 18. The Hypo-Chondri-Cat (Chuck Jones) 19. Cyrano de Bergerac (Michael Gordon) 20. Devil's Doorway (Anthony Mann)
Of the films of 1950 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in Beauty and the Devil, En Passant Par La Lorraine, and Last Holiday.
THE NEW AGE ASSASSIN: ABC has interviewed Zach Osler, a friend of the Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner. If you're trying to decipher Loughner's worldview, Osler's comments offer two important clues.
First: Osler flatly rejects the theory that the killer was driven by the political rhetoric found on cable news and AM radio. Loughner, he says,
did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn't listen to political radio. He didn't take sides. He wasn't on the left. He wasn't on the right.
Second: Loughner turns out to be a fan of Zeitgeist, a feature-length online documentary that is one-third arguments that Jesus never existed and religion is an evil fraud, one-third 9/11 trutherism, and one-third conspiracy theories about bankers. There's been a lot of speculation out there about one of Loughner's comments on YouTube, "I won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver!" -- a sentence that may sound like something a gold bug would say, except that Loughner was also prone to describing strange schemes for an "infinite source of currency," which is precisely the sort of suggestion gold standard advocates would reject. His interest in Zeitgeist clears things up a bit. The movie belongs to the old money-crank tradition, which stretches from the Greenback Party to the Social Credit movement and from Ezra Pound to Alan Watts. The film's chief argument against the Fed is that it is a private institution that profits by lending money at interest; the filmmaker prefers an "interest-free independent currency" that isn't created by private banks.
Is this left-wing or right-wing? Money cranks come in both flavors, but in the case of Zeitgeist the labels "left" and "right" are pretty useless descriptors. The best label would probably be "New Age paranoia." If you've ever gone browsing in an occult bookstore (and you really should; it's like browsing in a science fiction bookstore, only the authors really believe the stories they're writing, or pretend to), you may have seen a shelf labeled "conspiracies" right alongside the sections marked "astrology" or "Tarot." People who write about fringe politics often miss the extent to which New Agers serve as a transmission belt, allowing ideas from the left, the right, and the counterculture -- not to mention more outré folks like the UFO buffs -- to slide from one subculture to another.
Zeitgeist obviously isn't the end of this story. Loughner may have been influenced by the picture, but he incorporated its ideas into his own crazycakes combination (which also seems to include an obsession with lucid dreaming and an interest in Philip K. Dick-style reality-bending movies such as Donnie Darko and A Scanner Darkly). The most important point here is that it's a mug's game to try to fit this guy into a neat little category like "right" or "left." Like many killers and would-be killers before him, Loughner belongs to the very far end of the political long tail.
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1960, it gave its Best Picture award to Billy Wilder's The Apartment. I don't often say this, but the Academy got it exactly right.
1. The Apartment Directed by Billy Wilder Written by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond
A comic drama -- or dramatic comedy? -- about the corrupting effects of hierarchy, and what it means to actually assert your freedom. The best American director's best film.
2. Psycho Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Written by Joseph Stefano, from a novel by Robert Bloch
It's hard to believe it now, but this once was widely condemned in the terms now reserved for films like Saw.
3. Cruel Story of Youth Written and directed by Nagisa Oshima
The Japanese Rebel Without a Cause, which I actually like better than the original Rebel Without a Cause.
4. La Dolce Vita Directed by Federico Fellini Written by Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, Brunello Rondi, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, from a story by Fellini, Flaiano, and Pinelli
"Don't be like me. Salvation doesn't lie within four walls."
5. Jazz on a Summer's Day Directed by Bert Stern
There's more here than just a concert film.
6. The Little Shop of Horrors Directed by Roger Corman Written by Charles B. Griffith
There's a lot to admire in this low-budget horror-comedy, including a very young Jack Nicholson in the role Bill Murray would play in the musical remake. But my favorite part of the picture is the pair of cops on loan from Dragnet and their deadpan conversations. "How are the kids?" "Lost one yesterday." "How'd that happen?" "Playing with matches." "Well, those are the breaks."
7. Peeping Tom Directed by Michael Powell Wirtten by Leo Marks
Like Psycho, this was widely condemned in the terms now reserved for films like Saw. But while Psycho was a huge hit for Hitchcock, Peeping Tom practically destroyed Powell's career.
8. The Virgin Spring Directed by Ingmar Bergman Written by Ulla Isaksson
Unlike Psycho and Peeping Tom, this highbrow revenge flick was not widely condemned in the terms now reserved for films like Saw. But this is the one that was remade as The Last House on the Left.
9. The Young One Directed by Luis Buñuel Written by Buñuel and Hugo Butler, from a story by Peter Matthiessen
Much more complicated than the typical racial message-movie.
10. The Housemaid Written and directed by Kim Ki-young
A dark and stylish thriller that progresses steadily from film noir to horror before revealing it belonged all along to a larger genre: the male fantasy disguised as a nightmare.
Honorable mentions:
11. Testament of Orpheus (Jean Cocteau) 12. Shoot the Piano Player (François Truffaut) 13. Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti) 14. Tunes of Glory (Ronald Neame) 15. Village of the Damned (Wolf Rilla) 16. The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang) 17. Zazie Dans Le Métro (Louis Malle) 18. Jigoku (Nobuo Nakagawa) 19. Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard) 20. The Your Name Here Story (The Calvin Company)
Footnote: Someone really ought to remake Tunes of Glory as a catty backstage musical with an all-girl cast.
Of the films of 1960 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in The Bad Sleep Well, The Entertainer, Night and Fog in Japan, and Purple Noon.
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1970, it gave its Best Picture award to Patton, a military biopic co-written by a kid named Francis Ford Coppola, who would go on to make The Godfather, and directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, who had just helmed Planet of the Apes. And isn't Patton ultimately a cross between The Godfather and Planet of the Apes? (What's that you say? It isn't? Damn, you're right. But it sounded good for a couple of seconds.)
Anyway, Patton is a good movie, and it made it onto my honorable mentions list. But it isn't in my top ten:
1. Five Easy Pieces Directed by Bob Rafelson Written by Carole Eastman, from a story by Rafelson and Eastman
Jack Nicholson gets a chance to play lead, and he doesn't waste it. From here through Cuckoo's Nest, he'll be one of the two or three most essential actors working in Hollywood.
2. MASH Directed by Robert Altman Written by Ring Lardner, Jr., from a novel by H. Richard Hornberger and W.C. Heinz
This is, among other things, the greatest football movie ever made.
3. Gimme Shelter Directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin
Yes, I'm rating the Altamont movie higher than the Woodstock movie.
4. Hospital Directed by Frederick Wiseman
One of several searing documentaries Wiseman has made about life under different bureaucracies, in this case a chaotic urban hospital.
5. Bed and Board Directed by François Truffaut Written by Truffaut, Claude de Givray, and Bernard Revon
400 Blows 4: The Voyage Home.
6. La Rupture Directed by Claude Chabrol Written by Chabrol, from a novel by Charlotte Armstrong
They say Chabrol was Hitchcock's greatest student. And they're right.
7. The Conformist Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci Written by Bertolucci, from a novel by Alberto Moravia
It's hard to take Bertolucci seriously as a critic of totalitarianism, given his Communist sympathies. Still, this look into the mind of a fascist is thoughtful, enthralling, and probably the best item on the director's c.v.
8. Le Cercle Rouge Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
"All men are guilty. They're born innocent, but it doesn't last."
9. Claire's Knee Written and directed by Eric Rohmer
The year's finest fetish film.
10. Woodstock Directed by Michael Wadleigh
If you actually went to Woodstock, you had to sit in a lot of mud and you probably got really hungry and there's a small chance that you died. If you waited to watch the movie, by contrast, the only thing that really tested your endurance was that endless Ten Years After song.
Honorable mentions:
11. Chicken Real (Les Blank) 12. Donkey Skin (Jacques Demy) 13. Wanda (Barbara Loden) 14. Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski) 15. Tristana (Luis Buñuel) 16. Dad, Can I Borrow the Car? (Ward Kimball) 17. Little Big Man (Arthur Penn) 18. Patton (Franklin J. Schaffner) 19. Hi, Mom! (Brian De Palma) 20. Husbands (John Cassavetes)
Of the films of 1970 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, and The Little Theater of Jean Renoir.
SELF-PROMOTION: My final Reasoncolumn of the year was about John Cage, Autotune the News, and related subjects. I also contributed to a year-end roundup of the best books of 2010. And a little squib I wrote for the January issue of the magazine, about the latest TV Carnage mixtape, is now online as well.
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1980, it gave its Best Picture award to Ordinary People, an after-school special with high production values. It isn't on my list. The most historically significant movie of the year was probably Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate, a longwinded western whose out-of-control budget and skimpy box office receipts brought the New Hollywood era to an end. Cimino's film has a terrible reputation, but I actually rather like it, flaws and all. But I didn't put it on my list either.
1. Mon Oncle d'Amerique Directed by Alain Resnais Written by Jean Gruault
Resnais lays out a deeply determinist vision, bordering on paranoia, in which human choices are little more than the involuntary responses of mice in mazes. Its storylines are fictional but the figure at the center of the movie -- the sociobiologist Henri Laborit -- is real, putting the picture at the little-traveled intersection where quasi-documentaries meet quasi-science fiction.
2. Melvin and Howard Directed by Jonathan Demme Written by Bo Goldman
Demme's early movies tended toward eccentric Americana. This one is the most eccentric and American of them all.
3. Raging Bull Directed by Martin Scorsese Written by Scorsese, Mardik Martin, Paul Schrader, and Robert De Niro, from a memoir by Jake LaMotta with Joseph Carter and Peter Savage
Along with Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, this is one of the high points of the Scorsese/De Niro partnership -- and while I don't think the film as a whole is quite on the same level as those other two pictures, it just might feature the best of De Niro's three performances.
4. UFOria Written and directed by John Binder
Surely the only flying saucer movie in which key plot points turn on the protagonist's physical resemblance to Waylon Jennings. Also featuring Harry Dean Stanton as a faith healer cum con artist; between this and Repo Man, Stanton has to be the most essential actor in '80s science fiction. Why the hell isn't this on DVD yet?
5. The Stunt Man Directed by Richard Rush Written by Rush and Lawrence B. Marcus, from a novel by Paul Brodeur
I was blown away by this movie when I saw it at age 18, and I renewed my affections for it by rewatching it every few years. Then I set it aside for awhile, pulled it out again in my thirties, and got the uncomfortable feeling that I'd outgrown it. Suddenly the lead character I'd identified with seemed like an asshole; his romance with the leading lady seemed implausible and contrived; the film-within-a-film seemed pretentious and inane. But I'll still put it here for old time's sake, and because Peter O'Toole and Allen Garfield are great in it, and because the picture is still entertaining even if it isn't all that profound. Besides, I'm starting to wonder how many of my newfound problems with the movie were really problems with the ways my younger self had been interpreting it, and if some of those flaws are actually deliberate ironies. Maybe I better watch it again.
6. Bronco Billy Directed by Clint Eastwood Written by Dennis Hackin
If Mon Oncle d'Amerique's determinist worldview was too depressing for you, let Bronco Billy be the antidote. It's a celebration of individual freedom, extolling America as a place where people can jettison their old identities and reinvent themselves. As clear a statement of Eastwood's libertarian values as you'll find this side of The Outlaw Josey Wales.
7. The Long Good Friday Directed by John Mackenzie Written by Barrie Keeffe
Bob Hoskins plays a gangster boss, and that really ought to be enough to get you to watch the movie right there.
8. Kagemusha Directed by Akira Kurosawa Written by Akira Kurosawa and Masato Ide
"When the original is gone, what will happen to the double?"
9. Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers Directed by Les Blank
An ode to the stinking rose.
10. Airplane! Written and directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker
I speak Jive. What's our vector, Victor? Stop calling me Shirley. Jim never vomits at home. There's a sale at Penney's! It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now. (I can go on like this all night.)
Honorable mentions:
11. Atlantic City (Louis Malle) 12. The Last Metro (François Truffaut) 13. Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford) 14. The Ninth Configuration (William Peter Blatty) 15. Bad Timing (Nicholas Roeg) 16. Carny (Robert Kaylor) 17. American Gigolo (Paul Schrader) 18. The Blues Brothers (John Landis) 19. Coal Miner's Daughter (Michael Apted) 20. History of the World in Three Minutes Flat (Michael Mills)
Of the films of 1980 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in Pepi, Luci, Bom. And sometime I suppose I should scale the 15-hour peak that is Berlin Alexanderplatz.