>> Some people have the tendency to see politics in everything. It’s often there, yes - I’m sure you could dissect the politics of Dora the Explorer if you wanted to, and without Googling, I’m confident someone has - but it really does detract from just experiencing a work of pop art. [Not everything is politics politics politics - I recall hearing about the director of some piece of horror dreck, perhaps it was The Hills Have Eyes 2, arguing in a plea for relevance that his movie was a response to the Iraq War. Yeah, sure it was buddy.] Such is the case with the lovely Wall-E, which - while not the best thing Pixar has ever created (The Incredibles, Toy Story 2, and Ratatouille are better films - and Nemo is more beautiful) - is a lovely, excellent piece of cinema, and superior to just about anything else you’ll see this year from any studio.
Pixar’s gift for deft, precise, economical character delineation might have hit its apogee with Eve. It’s all in the tilt of the head and the shape of the eyes – the latter defined by ten blue lines. At first they have two or three shapes; by the end they’ve adopted the shape of Wall-E’s own eyes, indicating her own progression towards awareness and empathy. She is a hard plastic cipher at the beginning; by the end, she is Princess Charming. Literally. (That’s another Disney throwback reference I haven’t seen anyone else note.)
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Wall-E’s actions when he sits down, knocks his treads together and pats the seat next to him may, I suspect, have been vetted and discussed and considered at great length. (Or not.) It’s the most overtly human action he makes in the entire film – it’s not emulative of humans, it’s instinctive.
Eve’s vocalizations change here, if I recall correctly – there’s nothing in her previous utterances that reveal any emotion that’s not consistent with top-level programming. “No – no” is the moment that makes us see what Wall-E saw in her – and just to underscore the Pixar gift, the moment is understated. Prior to this she’s been an impatient professional.
Update: I noticed that more than a few online critics have taken the opportunity to rank the Pixar films now that there are enough of them to do so. Here’s my own Top Ten, FWIW - it clearly displays my Brad Bird bias:
10. Lifted (I know it’s a short)
9. A Bug’s Life
8. Cars
7. Toy Story
6. Finding Nemo
5. Wall-E
4. Monsters, Inc.
3. Ratatouille
2. Toy Story 2
1. The Incredibles
The internet is flooded with movie lists. Search for virtually any variety, any theme, any mishmash of tags and qualities and plot twists, and you can find a top 10, top 20, or even top 100 list. The best Top Films list, by my measure, can be found over at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They – but one of the reasons it’s the best is that it can shift and adapt with time, based on the shifting opinions of critics, writers, and the internet populace. Of course, I fully expect that in the ever more wiki-friendly existence of the future, where everyone’s an equal critic, Battlefield Earth will champion all such lists. So here’s one more static one, purely subjective in every way, of what I consider Ten Beautiful Films You May Not Have Seen.
There are plenty of beautiful films that are quite popular and successful – from the old black and white classics to the Technicolor epics to the modern masterpieces. Many of them are found on lists like this one, from the French magazine Cahiers du cinema.
I thought it might be useful, though, to consider a few films that probably won’t make it high on any list like that one – whether it’s because even if they’re visually impressive, they’re flawed in some obvious way, or have a script that can’t match their cinematography, or they’ve got some unforgivably irritating element that overwhelms the good in them. For the record, I think this describes just about every movie Guy Pearce has ever made – he had a good six films that I considered but rejected for this list, none of them because of him.
There are other beautiful movies that I considered and rejected – usually because they’re too popular (see: Godfather, The), too CGI or effects-heavy (see: Lord of the Rings – it’s great, but this is animation, not reality), nothing that’s only noir (I love dark movies, but something like The Third Man or Thief may be intense and powerful, but since that’s all they do, they can’t really qualify as visual beauty for what they don’t show), or so iconic that anyone who’s a student of cinema has already seen them (hence why there’s no Hitchcock on this list, nor any of the other old classics). Films that missed the cut for the aforementioned reasons include Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, Ben Hur, Patton, The Natural, Night of the Hunter, The Big Sleep, Charade, Roman Holiday, Manhattan, Bullitt, The Getaway (Ali McGraw never looked better), Mystery of Rampo, Blade Runner, The Sand Pebbles, Chinatown, The Sting, Apocalypto, O Brother Where Art Thou, North by Northwest, Miller’s Crossing, Branagh’s Hamlet, The Abyss, Raging Bull, The Right Stuff, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Fountain, Sexy Beast, The Last Emperor, Empire of the Sun, George Washington, The Rules of the Game, Heat, Unforgiven, Dark City, The Painted Veil, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Breaker Morant, The Battle of Algiers, The Incredibles, The Mission, Layer Cake, La Roue, Napoleon, and Metropolis.
I had a hard time with The Life Aquatic, this blog’s namesake and perhaps the last good Wes Anderson film we’re going to get now that he’s actively declared war on the concept of plot (here’s hoping that’s not the case), but ultimately decided it was too much of a picture book. Besides, everyone’s seen it.
I struggled with Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America – but ultimately decided it’s too well known, you’d recognize all the people in it, and as wonderful as it is, there are so many other films that capture New York City.
And then there was the hardest one for me to cut of all, Michael Mann’s The Last of the Mohicans – a gorgeous and underrated film which manages to be both the perfect chick flick AND the perfect guy movie all at once – I can see it now, the women walking out of the theater saying, “She threw herself over the edge – so sad, and so romantic!” as the guys say “Did you see that? He chopped that guy in half with that axe thing! It was awesome!” But it will make a prominent appearance on the next list I’m planning, and it was quite popular, so you’ve probably already seen it, too.
So that leaves us with these, in no particular order.
The New World
Just unbroken cinematic beauty, from the first note to the last. When they initially planned to film this movie, Terence Malick and his crew assumed they’d have to find somewhere remote, outside of the United States even – but on a lark, they decided to scout the Tidewater area, and took a trip up the Chickahominy. They ended up realizing that the location near Jamestown was largely unchanged. And so the forests you see are the forests they saw, give or take 300+ years.
Not everyone liked Malick’s film. But the people who liked it seemed to love it, too. I’m glad it has such a strong place in the heart of a few critics, like Jeffrey Overstreet, and I recall Ross Douthat loving it too (but his review, on the old American Scene blog appears lost to the sands of the unsearchable net). It reminds me, as it did him, of the old Robert Frost poem, The Gift Outright.
What’s more, I’ve felt on repeat viewings that the underlying story – the tale behind the gorgeously filmed surface of this movie (all natural light, almost all 65mm stock) – goes much deeper than you might think. The relationship with Pocahontas can be viewed as an allegory for the foundation of America. Bear with me now, it’s not as silly as it sounds: Comparing the personality types of the courageous risk-taking Discoverer in Colin Farrell’s John Smith and the steady, uninspiring, yet tough and reliable Farmer in Christian Bale’s John Rolfe, and you see the two personalities that made the nation possible – the explorer and the maker. Smith, the unreliable rascal whose fear and shady past motivated him to head toward the far reaches of the known sphere, discovers Pocahontas. But you cannot trust this man to build a country, to have the wherewithal to work the land, endure hardship, and make a life worth living in this new world – to be faithful, committed, and make something out of it all. Something like America.
The Searchers
I don’t think it’s all that pretentious to say that if you are an American film buff of any significant level, you’ll have seen The Searchers. Merely a modest commercial success in its time, the respect for this film, its influence and appeal have only grown, chiefly because of a change in understanding of a key relationship and plot point – never spoken of aloud, only implied.
Not the perfect western by any means – it plods and halts at points – this is nonetheless a movie of great, epic, expansive beauty. You must see this film, even if you skip all the others on this list.
City of God (Cidade de Deus)
You’ve probably heard of this one. City of God is tragic, ruthless, violent and unforgiving. Only one professional actor is in the whole thing – it’s all on the edge, and there’s no games in this thing. The youngsters that populate this tale are murderous and plotting, and you understand why they have the strength of will to run a profitable drug trade, if only for a few years.
Directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, the tales in this story are continued in City of Men, at least in spirit. But the original film is still the piece of moviemaking that will haunt you for days after you view it.
The Red Violin (Le Violon Rouge)
This is not a particularly successful movie. It tries to do too much – using a violin, its music, and its ownership as the major pieces in an across-the-ages plotline that is a tad ludicrous. The bodice-ripping tendencies of the second act – with the usually superb Greta Scacchi (if you can, dig up her excellent little turn as Lady Macbeth) and the “he’s better as a funny guy” Jason Flemyng – are laugh inducing. And the whole thing seems overwrought and gimmicky, sort of what you’d expect from a director who made his name doing Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould.
That said, the cinematography is flat out gorgeous at points. The use of color is brilliant, particularly in the flow of character-types through the ages, and the seamlessness of some scenes. The soundtrack, played by the brilliant Joshua Bell, will blow you away. Don’t think too hard about the story – just get swept away by the experience of a beautiful piece of modern cinema.
Barry Lyndon
I never really liked this as a movie – I confess, I don’t love post-black & white Kubrick as much as I should, I still feel like The Killing, Lolita, and Dr. Strangelove are just all-around more watchable and engaging films than 2001, Clockwork Orange, and Full Metal Jacket – but I swear, Barry Lyndon is just gorgeous to behold. John Alcott’s work on the film is the stuff of legend (as far as I know, this film still features the use of the biggest aperture in movie history).
It’s still kind of amusing that Ryan O’Neal got this part because he was considered a bigger star at the time than Robert Redford, so it’s the only way Kubrick could get the movie financed. Later, it would turn out that Kubrick offered the part to Redford anyway, only to be turned down. But O’Neal’s not the reason to see this. These beautiful scenes are.
While others may disagree, I truly believe this is the most visually appealing movie Kubrick ever made. And that’s something worth seeing.
Kagemusha
This had to be on here. Yeah, I know that Ran is a better movie – but the first time I saw Kagemusha is still clear as crystal. I’m still torn about which one deserves to be on this list, but I feel like Ran is more popular. Maybe I should just leave it at: see them both, and decide for yourself.
Ronin
Ah, a beautiful car chase movie – and not a stupid one, either. One of the best casts you’ll ever see onscreen at the same time: De Niro, Reno, Skarsgard, McElhone, and a total of three Bond villains – Bean, and Pryce. This movie has characters, yes – but it is all about the cars. Car chases in Bullitt are classic and American, car chases in The French Connection are blunt and urban, but car chases in Ronin are brilliantly varied and elegantly European.
The camera work in this film is excellent stuff, edgy but not overdone. Parisian cinematographer Robert Fraisse, who has a rather odd filmography, makes some excellent choices, elevating this piece far above the realm of the normal shoot-em up. And if this is the last adrenaline rush for De Niro, who hasn’t made a single good action film since (though I’ve got my hopes up about the Michael Mann-helmed Frankie Machine, due out in two years – that is, if he survives what looks like the very flop-worthy Righteous Kill), it’s a classic one.
This is Frankenheimer’s best cinematic work since The Train, and it’s got a pretty good story (albeit MacGuffin centered – but c’mon, even Hitchcock used that) with a great script, though I’m sure all the best parts are from the (uncredited) David Mamet edits. If you’re a guy, you’ve probably seen this already. If you haven’t: grow a pair and do it now.
A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles)
So let’s follow the car chase movie with snappy Mamet lines with a French romance war epic. But it absolutely deserves to be on this list. The trailer is here, but there’s a clip below that’s better for not having the “I’m the important voice trying to sell this to American audiences” voiceover.
I can’t say anything about this movie that does justice to it as a work of art. Just – watch a few scenes. You’ll see it. Oh, and: eat your heart out, Atonement.
Road to Perdition
For being the most profitable film on the list, this is not a great movie. Tom Hanks is poorly cast in it, and uncomfortable with the part of father/heavy. The kid is an irritation. Daniel Craig is one dimensional. Sam Mendes’ directing is decent, but not really that imaginative. It’s based on a comic book and feels like it. It is a cold movie, and a wet, wet movie – dripping with rain. If you want an Irish mob movie, see Miller’s Crossing.
But let me tell you – visually, it’s like watching Edward Hopper brought to life. Conrad Hall won the Academy Award for Cinematography – his first came for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). He was a genius. And this is just masterful.
For that fact alone, if this is Paul Newman’s last on-screen part, he can be proud of it. “There are only murderers in this room, Michael. Open your eyes. This is the life we chose. The life we lead. And there is only one guarantee—none of us will see heaven.”
Before the Rain (Pred Dozhdot)
This was the film that started me thinking about this whole concept, when the alert came across my watchlist that Criterion was releasing a newly restored version of Before the Rain on DVD (at last). I saw it years ago in a screenwriting class, and it amazed me at the time. Unlike some of the other films on this list, all aspects of this effort make for a worthy achievement.
It’s hard to make a film about ethnic conflict in the Balkans that speaks to the unending, self-perpetuating, and convoluted nature of these deadly clashes. It seems like so many of the locale-centered movies that you see in America today are in the same places – New York, Los Angeles, the same backgrounds, the same forests, the same hills – to the point where you can go see an average flick like Mission: Impossible 3, and you’ll spot the same bridge setups and Euro backgrounds you’ve seen in a hundred other movies. It’s almost comforting, like seeing the same set week after week on your favorite sitcom, nothing disturbed or out of place, and all the furniture undisturbed.
In a movie like Before the Rain, you may recognize all of one setting or location, and probably only one actor: Rade Serbedzija, the figure at the heart of the sad story. But the performances are complemented by a sense of scale and land that is memorable and striking, and the camera work here – for an inexperienced writer/director in Milcho Manchevski – is just an amazingly well-crafted thing, giving the viewer the impression that they are caught in an ever-swirling trap of time and land and culture. In real life at least, there is always an opportunity to break out of this whirlwind – but not in this film.
I’ve been a fan of the Criterion Collection DVD series for some time, ever since I saw a friend’s copy of their wonderful remastered version of Charade - perhaps the best Hitchcock not directed by Hitchcock - whose VHS version, when you can find it, is notoriously grainy and washed out, even to the point of eliminating the dimple in Cary Grant’s chin, which Audrey Hepburn points out as she asks, “How do you shave in there?”
If you haven’t seen one of their other films, the Criterion folks pull together a film-school session in a DVD package - a full range of supplemental materials, commentary, interviews, and background info - coupled with some excellent design perks. They all cost about twice as much as a normal DVD, but if it’s for a film you really enjoy and will watch over and over again, it’s worth it.
The least known and shortest film is the 1958 version of The Killers, which was put together by a famous Russian director, Andrei Tarkovsky, as a student film project. It’s chilling and stark, but it also is the most true to the fatalism of Hemingway’s original story - about two hired killers who come to town in search of a target, a man they don’t know named “The Swede.” But when the man is warned of the fact, he greets the news of his oncoming death with a calm resignation. He is not interested in running. When he originally wrote the story, Hemingway is said to have changed the title from “The Killers” to “The Matador” and back again. The idea of the man who stands as the bull charges is very Hemingway, yet it’s the Russian who seems to best summarize this idea in a simplistic three-scene film.
The 1946 Robert Siodnak version of The Killers is an apotheosis of film noir, all characters in darkness emerging into pools of light. Siodnak opens with the scene in Hemingway’s story transferred to a small New Jersey town, which is full of ominous wit. But that’s only the first reel of the film - after The Swede is killed (Burt Lancaster in the role that really launched him as a star, even at the old Hollywood age of 32), the film invents a reason to delve into backstory.
What’s interesting about the ‘48 film when viewed today is how much of the plotline and characters have been imitated and duplicated since, even to the point of relatively recent films. Busted caper films really are limited in their form, and there are only so many ways to change it by inventing new venues or twists. And while the packaging may be dark, the film’s actual message is less so - the villains get what they deserve, the everyman hero figures out the mystery, and the femme fatale (Ava Gardner) is reduced to begging the dying husband she doesn’t love to clear her name. The film actually ends on a joke, one that feels more appropriate for a radio serial. This is old-school noir - a great model of a film that deals with the darkest corners of human existence, while still being essentially a family-friendly enterprise.
Not so for the 1964 Don Siegel version of The Killers, which is famous for a couple of reasons: it’s got the best performance of Lee Marvin’s storied career; it was supposed to be the first honest-to-goodness major made for TV movie (NBC ultimately passed on it because of the violence); and it has the last performance of Ronald Reagan, as the villain. The ‘64 film is noir without the shadows. It has no darkness in it - even every death is in broad California daylight, which somehow makes it more disturbing. There’s no diner scene in this, no Hemingway (a fact that led to much critical disfavor at the time), and the Swede has turned into a modern race car driver, but the violence - particularly that directed at Angie Dickinson, all legs and hollow promises, who gets smacked around by half the men in the picture - is surprisingly raw for the time, and it tells us a lot about how much Hollywood has changed in less than 20 years. A movie like this obviously pales next to Reservoir Dogs, but it’s obvious that they’re on the same visceral coninuum.
Marvin really is very good, driven and undeterred and a murderous student of human nature. His death scene over the last few minutes of the film is chillingly great. Sidekick Clu Gallagher’s performance as the younger yet more heartless hitman serves as a rebuke for every snotnosed brat packer who’s tried a similar role with less dedication. And Reagan, though he hated the film, and only did it as a favor to a friend, is steadily great. “I approve of larceny,” his character says, “Homicide is against my principles.” The best moment for Reagan comes at the end, as Dickinson weakly tries to lie her way out of death. Reagan glances at the ill-gotten cash in his hand, and gives her a sideways look that hints at quiet disgust. Dickinson’s doe-eyed act, which worked on so many others - including the audience - doesn’t buy her any mercy from Marvin. “Lady,” he spits, “I don’t have the time.”
The dark hitman drama is one of Hollywood’s standbys, and films like Collateral continue in the tradition of the ‘64 Killers. Yet there’s little joy in such inhuman protagonists, and limited story to boot. There are elements passed on from these older films to the revenge flicks like Man on Fire, Road to Perdition or The Limey - yet it’s illuminating to realize that the more enduring films are ones like Leon (The Professional), where the redemptive power of human relationships drives the emotional attachment to storyline.
The novelty of a flawed criminal or violent killer as a protagonist was a part of the ‘46 picture; it was all of the ‘64. Now there’s no novelty left. And what you really see here is actually a darker story: how, from 1945 to 2005, we got to a point where we have more antiheroes than actual heroes at the movie theater.
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