2015: Top Ten Films I Saw for the First Time
After a years long absence, I have decided to come back to my "book to film" blog and start practicing my writing again. What better way to return than to post about the ten best films I saw this year that I had never seen before. This is meant to be the first in more regular posts, hopefully being a weekly update on the films I saw in each given week going forward indefinitely. So here you go, for the two, maybe three people that will probably read this.
10. Crumb
Year: 1994
With a depth and understanding that most documentaries can only dream of, Terry Zwigoff explores the life and mind of cartoonist Robert Crumb: a man with deeply haunted psychological depths. This portrait of an idiosyncratic artist whose work depicted the underbelly of American society with wit and truth. It is possibly one of the greatest documentaries, and certainly a very insightful and fascinating character study.
Director: Terry Zwigoff
With a depth and understanding that most documentaries can only dream of, Terry Zwigoff explores the life and mind of cartoonist Robert Crumb: a man with deeply haunted psychological depths. This portrait of an idiosyncratic artist whose work depicted the underbelly of American society with wit and truth. It is possibly one of the greatest documentaries, and certainly a very insightful and fascinating character study.
9. On the Waterfront
Year: 1954
Director: Elia Kazan
And thus, acting was forever changed by Marlon Brando, as directed by Elia Kazan. This is a film remarkable for its impressive and revolutionary performance, but it should not be allowed to have that overshadow the rest of the film itself, which is also beautiful and a masterpiece in it’s own right. A rousing, sorrowful, and hopeful tale of union and doing the right thing, even in the face of great adversary.
Director: Elia Kazan
And thus, acting was forever changed by Marlon Brando, as directed by Elia Kazan. This is a film remarkable for its impressive and revolutionary performance, but it should not be allowed to have that overshadow the rest of the film itself, which is also beautiful and a masterpiece in it’s own right. A rousing, sorrowful, and hopeful tale of union and doing the right thing, even in the face of great adversary.
8. Persona
Year: 1966
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Acting is the art performance. An actress must take something from inside and project it into their mind and onto their body to convey and provoke certain emotions. That is also the job of the director, only instead of using their voice and body they use the camera. In Persona, both these tools are broken and reshaped into something cinema had not seen before. The result is a brilliant, haunting masterpiece.
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Acting is the art performance. An actress must take something from inside and project it into their mind and onto their body to convey and provoke certain emotions. That is also the job of the director, only instead of using their voice and body they use the camera. In Persona, both these tools are broken and reshaped into something cinema had not seen before. The result is a brilliant, haunting masterpiece.
7. Don't Look Now
Year: 1973
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Love and death in Venice never was so dark and intriguing, albeit going off an honestly limited knowledge of that very specific topic. None the less Don’t Look Now is a masterclass in suspense and features some of the best editing ever to grace the screen, with great direction, score, and performances from Sutherland and Christie. One of the greatest horror films of all time. Deeply mysterious and deadly evocative
6. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Year: 2010
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Boonmee is haunted by ghosts of former lives, as the film itself is haunted by the ghosts of Weerasethakul’s previous meditations on life and nature. It’s a beautiful, rich, dark, and magical experience, which is easily the directors best effort. Like the echoes of past lives it stays with you long after it’s over, residing in you like the spirits that watch over Uncle Boonmee in his final days in this world.
5. Picnic at Hanging Rock
Year: 1975
Director: Peter Weir
Deep in the heart of hanging rock there are impenetrable mysteries; mysteries of unknown pleasures and dangers and understandings not yet discovered by the young women who get lost there. It’s a film of elusiveness and mysticism, with an always out of reach/out of sight truth just beyond the next corner and crag of the rock and of the movie. It’s beautiful and haunting and unknowable.
4. Raging Bull
Year: 1980
Director: Martin Scorsese
In Rocky, you’re in the audience, cheering for the hero, believing in him. In Raging Bull, you’re in the ring, and you feel the hits, and each one hurts with searing pain. This film is an amazing achievement in direction, cinematography, acting, and it’s one of the most visceral, painful films I’ve seen. When Balboa wins, you feel release of emotion. When LaMotta wins, you feel relief from the pain.
3. The Big City
Year: 1963
Director: Satyajit Ray
Going in, I didn’t expect how reverberating and powerful this film would be. In Ray’s gentle touch there is so much beauty and emotion that can be expressed, in ways that isn’t captured when the emotions are overblown and fake. Its also very brave and progressive in its depiction of a house wife leaving home and working to support her family in India. An amazing performance from Madhabi Mukherjee.
2. Nashville
Year: 1975
Director: Robert Altman
I don’t even like country music, but something about this film, which is very much steeped in country and the surrounding culture, had me almost immediately and kept me transfixed and awe inspired right up until the final, beautiful, climactic performance. This is one of those movies you see where you don’t necessarily know why it had such a big impact on you, but you immediately recognize as a masterpiece.
1. Fanny and Alexander
Year: 1982
Director: Ingmar Bergman
There are few films that attempt to bring such huge scope and depth to the screen, and fewer that pull it off as masterfully as this. It was originally intended to be Bergman’s final film, and if it ended up being so I can’t think of a better way to end a career. The film captures all of life, birth to death, and a possible afterlife. It knows how to see the world through the eyes of the very young and the very old.
