My 23 Favorite Films

Such a list is bogus, of course as it’s a moving target, and so much has to be left out. But, basically, if you see all these you’ll know what’s important to me. It’s annotated, so you can just read my opinion if you like, and not necessarily see the movie.

SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT. This one stands for all of Bergman. His first film to be internationally acclaimed, it made possible for him to make the darker films for which he is known. Movies like THE SEVENTH SEAL, SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE, THE PASSION OF ANNA, his God Trilogy, WINTER LIGHT, THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY, and THE SILENCE, also FACE TO FACE, CRIES AND WHISPERS, HOUR OF THE WOLF, THEc MAGIC FLUTE, SHAME, AUTUM SONATA, and SAWDUST AND TINSEL.  See also below.

THE LADY EVE. This stands for all of Sturges’s screwball  masterpieces of the early 1940s. And Barbara Stanwyck’s  greatest film. As I see it, the list would also include THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK, SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS, PALM BEACH STORY, HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO, and UNFAITHFULLY YOURS. I was once told that his screwball comedies combined an American brashness with a  European literacy. The European part may be influenced by the fact that he was forced to travel around Europe as a boy. His mother was part of Isadora Duncan’s entourage. He dutifully put on the Greek robes he was required to wear. That his screwball comedies had a lot of words, and scripts to which attention should be paid. And his stories were subversive.  Poking fun at the war values and at the predatory nature of the relations between men and women. In the later 40s it just didn’t work any more. His Golden period was the early 1940s. He made some films after that,like THE SIN OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK/MAD WEDNESDAY but they were mostly boring.
The magic was just not there any more.

LE HAVRE. By Aki Kurasmaki. This subtly hilarious film is supposed to ulimately be part of a series by this Finnish director about European port cities. Whether that happens or not, this one is a gem.

ANDREY RUBLEV. This, in turn, stands for all of Tarkovsky, including STALKER, MIRROR, and SOLARIS. I remember that the Russians of my acquaintance hated it when it came out. Very little is known about Andrey Rublev the man. They thought the film went too far past those few facts. They didn’t understand.

JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAY DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES. By Chantal Ackerman. Why is this long (3 hours) movie not boring? It’s as plain as that matter-of-fact title. This woman lives in an apartment at the address given above with her teenaged son.  He wants to go to a French-speaking school, so his mother is tutoring him in that language. The school he goes to is Flemish-speaking. Jeanne prepares meals for him, and turns tricks as a prostitute while he is away to make ends meet. On day 3 there is a murder.

THE VIRGIN SPRING.  Back to Bergman, the great master. I’ve heard this was his least favorite of all his movies. I consider it one of his best. It takes a medieval saint’s story and turns it on its head, with glorious cinematography to boot. I often think of the final scene. The faces of all the kneeling people. When they see the magical spring flow from where
The girl’s dead body had been. Their collective expression is a sort of group aghast. Their faces say, “Really? We gave up this young girl, and all we get is this stupid spring?”

WILD STRAWBERRIES. More Bergman. I’m putting this here because I’ve probably seen it more than any other film. Probably 20 times.

PERSONA. Is this Bergman’s masterpiece? Maybe so. The visually stunning story of an actress who suddenly stops speaking, and is sent with her nurse to spend some time at a remote beach house. There the identities of the actress (Liv Ullmman) and the nurse (Bibi Andersson) get confused.  The film  asks many questions, like Is the actress only confronting the modern loss of identity we all have? Does her profession (where identities change very easily) simply incline her to be one of the first to feel this lack of identity? And so on.

HIS GIRL FRIDAY. Ya gotta love it. People talk as fast auctioneers. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russel at their very best.

STAGE DOOR. Like “dying and going to wisecrack heaven.”  There are many famous actors in this (including a young, not-yet-redheaded Lucille Ball). You get to hear Katharine Hepburn say, “The calla lilies are in bloom again.”

DESK SET. I consider this the best film Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy made together. The very funny script is by Henry and Phoebe Ephron (parents of Nora) and is a very early story about a computer taking over the jobs of human beings. The scene where Spencer gives Kate an intelligence test on the top of the building is worth the price of admission by itself.

CHILDREN OF PARADISE by Marcel Carne. It’s sort of the French GONE WITH THE WIND but better. That it was made between 1943 and 1945, and all the sets had to be torn down and built again while fleeing the Nazis is only incidental.

BROADWAY DANNY ROSE. By Woody Allen. This may be my favorite film of all time. It’s from that period when all of Allen’s films looked like Diane Arbus photos come to life.  It’s a simple fable of the healing that comes with repentance and forgiveness. And there are many references to great films in it. Like the movies of Vittorio de Sica.

COLUMBUS the first movie about architecture that really works. It’s about the power of art, and in this case architecture, to change lives.

PARIS, JE T’AIME. Not one film, but 18 short ones each with a different director. Each takes place in a different arondissment and has different actors and a different feel. Some are funny. Some are dark. Some are lighthearted. Some are tragedies. My favorite is the last one. Directed by Alexander Payne. And starring the great Margo Martindale. Margo plays a midwestern American postal carrier, making her trip to Paris, which is the main event of her entire life. She narrates this film of her trip in French, with a midwestern American accent.

REAR WINDOW. By Alfred Hitchcock.  It speaks to the voyeur in all of us. A great set. Grace Kelly is beautiful.

STOP MAKING SENSE. Best concert movie ever!  I love the opening where David Byrne walks in with an acoustic guitar. Slowly they add all the instruments and voices, and before you know it, they are doing a gleeful version of  BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE.

DECALOG. Long before he did his famous Three Colors trilogy, Kristoph Kieslowski directed this ten-part film based on the Ten Commandments. The last one is comic, like the movies in the three colors trilogy, like Greek tragedy.

WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. I must include a film by Pedro Almodovar, and maybe this is the one. He also directed a lot of others. His view of the color image is revelatory.

EL VERDUGO by Luis Garcia Berlangia. The name of it translates to “The Executioner.” Berlangia is not well known outside of Spain because he makes the actors talk too fast and over each other, but he should be. This funny, dark, and satirical movie may be his best.

VERTIGO. By Alfred Hitchcock.  Another great one by the great one. Visually stunning. Its images stay in my mind, forever.

THE APU TRILOGY. Just to include a movie by the great Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray. He made many films, icluding the ones  that make up this trilogy: PATHER PANJALI, APARAJITO and THE WORLD OF APU. In the last one Apu struggles to be a writer, and ends up unexpectedly marrying a young girl he doesn’t know. They fall in love. She gets pregnant, and dies in childbirth, leaving her boy to be raised by his grandmother. Apu’s gradual transformation is very moving. He ends up connecting with his son.

Yeah, this list is horribly incomplete. Where is PATERSON? Where is LA CONFIDENTIAL? Where is THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW? Where is all the great stuff now on TV? I give up. But see the above and you can’t really go wrong.