What makes a film a valuable work of art? The answer is complicated by the fact that there are many different ways for a film to make manifest what its subject or subjects are. For me Chinatown is a great film because it 1) Tells an intriguing story on two levels, the story of the building of Los Angeles, and the corruption it entailed; the love story of two unlikely lovers caught up in the larger story. 2) It does this visually as well as through dialogue and narration. The images and scenes of the film are key to the unfolding of the story. Music and cinematography are essential exciting elements. 3) the film is coherent despite the intricacies and complexity of plot, unfolding of characters, and surprising revelations. The characters in the film change and grow more aware as the story unfolds. 4) The film is brilliant with profound insights into character, history, human nature, love, corruption, the power of evil, capitalism, naivete, and disillusionment, to name a few. It is a dark story, but whether a film is "uplifting," or depressing, or shocking, or whatever does not matter so long as it possesses such qualities as the above four. My one caveat is that I am bored with the contrived "Hollywood ending," resembling the unnecessary, but now too often performed, "happy ending" to a good massage.
Recent films I think excel, some of which I've posted commentary* :
On The Road (review)
Weekend *
Melancholia*
Take This Waltz (review)
Perks of Being a Wallflower (review)
Dangerous Method (review)
Past Films that have shaped my life and my understanding of life include:
- 1900 (socialism and friendship)
- American Beauty (modern living)
- Cabaret (gay '30s Berlin, Liza)
- Casablanca (noble character, war)
- Chinatown (capitalism, evil, making of L. A. )
- The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (it's bad to be bourgeois)
- 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)
- Home at the End of the World (love and threesomes)
- Juliet of the Spirits(the Beauty of fantasy)
- Midnight Cowboy (New York, love)
- Maurice(Subtle, perceptive rendering of the Forster novel)
- Night of the Iguana (Tennessee Williams, Mexico)
- Shortbus (genuine sexuality, love, and the psyche) (click)
- Koyaanisqatsi (the World out of joint)
- 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, Sarah Polley and good old Woody Allen
(all are clickable)
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, Sarah Polley and good old Woody Allen
(all are clickable)
The Guardian has quite a list
of 40 current Film Directors
(click)
Current Films
--Jameson
