For those of you who are keeping track, yes, I am still traumatized by last year's effort to watch a new movie every day of 2022. Thank you for asking.
In this state of malaise where selecting one film to watch out of the thousands I have not yet seen feels like passing a kidney stone, I am often left to determine which movies will most advance my education on film as an artform. This gets me thinking about the inherent intellectual worth of any given film.
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| Billy Wilder directing Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine on the set of The Apartment |
I see this list as one with a primarily educational incentive rather than one of "favorites," though I do enjoy all of these films. Looking beyond personal fondness, one also has to consider recurring phenomena within the medium and which films display them most clearly--film scholars should be familiar with the neo-realist movement and how it shaped larger cinema, for example. There is obviously a lot to know about the language and history of film, but we'll keep things simple and limit ourselves to just five films here.
I don't pretend to have mapped out all the corners of worthy film, not on this list and not elsewhere, but if your film school cousin is coming to town next weekend and you really want to impress them, here are some basic touchstone films to familiarize yourself with.
1. Metropolis (1927)
Talking Points: Metropolis is a German silent epic about a stratified futuristic society in which the privileged class floats in luxury on the back of the exploited working class. When the son of the city master learns of the plight of the workers, he takes it on himself to correct the failings of his father and restore balance to Metropolis.
This is one of the earliest, and most iconic, film depictions of class warfare. The image of the machine as a giant monster which feeds on the workers is one of the hallmark pictures of the classist struggle.
This is also an example of German-expressionist film, a hyper-stylized cultural movement in the country during the 1920s that emphasized all things grim and grotesque. German-expressionism made heavy use of intense lights and darks to evoke a feeling that was at once dreamlike and unsettling. The movement is often seen as Germany's response to the state of the country after World War I left the union rattled and disparate, and its influence can be felt in popular media today, particularly in specialized realms like the horror genre.
The Professor's Take: What really strikes me upon rewatches is how this film almost has a blockbuster sense of scale to it. The film's final act has some pretty impressive set pieces that you'd think early filmmakers just wouldn't attempt with the limited effects that were available. The flooding of the underground city in the climax feels particularly epic in scope. Films like these remind me that while much about film has evolved in the hundred plus years since it was introduced, some aspects of the viewing experience are as old as the medium itself.
2. Vertigo (1958)
Talking Points: If you want to really advance your film literacy, there are certain directors you will want to study and study well, and Alfred Hitchcock is in the inner circle. He is not only a master at visual storytelling and wrestling with audience's suspense, but his films personify certain aspects of the human experience that are themselves inherently linked with the medium of film. Hitchcock knows, for example, that film is itself a sort of voyeurism for the audience. His films display this function while also commenting on it. This is all perhaps clearest with his 1958 offering, Vertigo. This film, foundational to the discussion on "the male gaze," puts its main character in a situation where the act of gazing is not only a prominent process within the film, it becomes a sort of thesis on the nature of objectification.
Vertigo follows a traumatized police detective, Scottie Ferguson, coming to terms with his newly awakened sense of acrophobia. An old friend convinces Scottie to take on one last mission as PI and investigate the mysterious behavior of his wife, Madeleine. In doing so, however, Scottie finds himself drawn to the mysterious Madeleine in ways that he did not anticipate, unearthing longings that are all-consuming and possibly deadly.
The Professor's Take: I actually came across this film when I was in that transition stage between film amateur to film academic, a time when I was still acclimating to the sensibilities of more auteur-driven films. At that time, I actually found the liberal plot twisting to be excessive and off-putting, and I remembered that it left a very poor taste in my mouth. Yet even then, I found that I couldn't stop thinking about this movie. It wasn't so long before I found the proper mindset in which to not only appreciate but admire the film.
3. Rashomon (1950)
Talking Points: I said that Hitchcock was one of those directors you need to at least know about. Kurosawa is also in that club. Our friend Kurosawa is most famous for his samurai epics (the name of this genre of Japanese film, for extra points, is Jidaigeki), which have gone on to influence elements of American cinema including Westerns as a whole and Star Wars specifically. The one you're most likely to encounter in Media Arts History I & II is his 1950 film, Rashomon.
This crime film taking place in feudal Japan follows four different accounts of a violent incident in which a young bride was raped by a bandit who also killed her husband. All the parties involved (including the dead husband, who gives his account with the help of a medium) have a different perspective on what happened, each of their own accounts painting them in the most sympathetic light possible. (What do you know? Literally four different cases of main character syndrome in one movie.)
The Professor's Take: As I get older, I have really come to appreciate films that know how to phrase complex experiences or phenomena in simple terms. That is the case with this study of whether the human mind is capable of discerning absolute truth. And so this film becomes a touchstone on the nature of storytelling and the human propensity to always see oneself as the good guy. In some ways, this cycle of self-affirmation is why we go to the movies to begin with. We all love to imagine ourselves as the one voice of reason in a distorted world, and films like Rashomon remind us that this is perhaps the least trustworthy impulse of them all.
4. Nights of Cabiria (1957)
Talking Points: Neo-realism emerged in many international markets following the second world war. This style defied the polished Hollywood vision by using film to capture the gritty side of life, capturing the desolation that so much of the world felt after the war. Italy was one country that really embraced this format. (Lots of countries had their own neo-realist movements. India was another really popular hotspot, offering films like Pather Panchali).
Neo-realism films generally had a low production value that the filmmakers believed captured a more authentic side of humanity, one that almost resembled a documentary--many of the actors were merely civilians that the crew found on the street, and some films didn't even follow a completed script. This method of filming stands in contrast to the glossy finish of traditional Hollywood films, and films like Nights of Cabiria garner a lot of affection from film afficionados for how they remind us that the medium is so equipped to capture a slice of humanity that is unfiltered, even viscerally so.
The Professor's Take: For my neo-realism spot, it came down to this or Bicycle Thieves. The latter might actually earn you slightly more street cred, and is also a very good film, but I've always had a soft spot for Nights of Cabiria. The title character's search for love brings you to such a low spot while also affirming the resilience of the human spirit, all without betraying the authenticity or ethos of this genre.
5. Waking Life (2001)
Talking Points: Filmmakers can also counter the Hollywood aesthetic without committing to hyper-realism. You can go so far the other direction and frolic in all things abstract and stylized. The avant-garde class of filmmaking encompasses a wide class of film, and there are a lot of valid entry points. The one we're going to spotlight today is Richard Linklater's 2001 animated piece, Waking Life.
As with a lot of avant-garde films, Waking Life is lacking anything resembling a plot. What we get instead is a current of loosely jointed scenes, all rendered in differing styles of animation. There's a central character who stumbles through this dreamlike landscape in search of truth, but the chapters themselves are united only through a shared love of life's unanswerable questions and philosophical musings. "They say dreaming is dead," one character muses. "No one does it anymore. It's not dead it's just that it's been forgotten, removed from our language. Nobody teaches it so nobody knows it exists."
The Professor's Take: The film itself is only about an hour and a half long, but as with a lot of stylized, episodic type films, it's really easy to lose yourself in this film. Individual viewers are bound to respond more to certain chapters over others, but that's where each person's experience will reveal their own unique flexes and fascinations. (I myself really love the "holy moments" segment pictured at the head of this section).
I could obviously go on for a long while like this, but you get the idea ...
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I've been formally studying film for coming on a decade now, and it's only in recent months that I have come to see myself as anything resembling "educated." However much you put upfront into your study, you're playing a long game. Still, it is imperative to seek out good films to learn from.
With lists like this, it's easy to accidentally propagate faulty notions that there are films that further your education, and there are films with don't. That's a dire preposition, and not one that I want to exacerbate. I'll say it again, any film can teach you something if you approach it with a fair curiosity. One need not limit their study to the criterion collection exclusively. While universally acclaimed films are a gem, open-mindedness will carry you a lot further than elitism. All films bring something to the table.
--The Professor
Honorable Mentions:
The 400 Blows (1959)
The Graduate (1967)
The King of Comedy (1982)
Black Orpheus (1959)
Roma (2018)
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