Friday, November 30, 2007

Life Imitates Art: Films that are life-altering


O
scar Wilde recognized the truth that Life Imitates Art, not the other way around. His example? The Ubiquitous London Fogs brought on by the Impressionists.
















Sunrise by Monet

The influence of art on life today is most obvious in film. Great directors and great films shape our perceptions of reality and alter our lives forever:






Dar, for instance, owes his personality to Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard,
to Gloria Swanson and William Holden.

Norma Desmond (click)




Films that have shaped my life and my understanding of life include:


(click)

American Beauty (modern living)
Cabaret (gay 30s Berlin, Liza)
Casablanca (noble character, war)
Chinatown (capitalism, evil, making of L. A. )

Fanny and Alexander(it's good to be Bourgeois)
The Godfather (pure evil, crime world)
Harold and Maude (suicide, ageless love)
The History Boys (the joys and sorrows of Teaching)

Juliet of the Spirits(the Beauty of fantasy)

 (click)
Midnight Cowboy (New York, love)
Night of the Iguana (Tennessee Williams, Mexico)

(click)
Shortbus (genuine sexuality, love, and the psyche)
(click)

Slaughterhouse Five (All's bad in war)
Some Like it Hot (Marilyn Monroe, drag)
The Wizard of Oz (Yellow Brick Road)
Women In Love (D.H. Lawrence)






Rashomon
by
Akira Kurosawa
 
(truth is subjective)




But this is just a sampling.
It is also essential to mention the great directors whose films have shaped my life:

Federico Fellini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Werner Fassbinder, Ken Russell, Peter Greenaway,
Lina Wertmüller, Derek Jarman, Pedro Almodovar, Ang Lee, John Waters, Ingmar Bergman, Louis Malle, Pier Paulo Pasolini, Kurosawa, Luis Bunuel, John Cameron Mitchell... even Woody Allen
(all are clickable)







The Guardian has quite a list
of 40 current Film Directors
(click)


Keep viewing

Jameson



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