#3: Casablanca

Michael Curtiz's 1942 wartime romance Casablanca ranks highly on any "best of all time" list I can find, and yet it didn't enchant nearly anyone in my living room the other night... until the last scene at the airport hangar. What is it about this Best Picture winner that keeps people devoted as time goes by? (Sorry, I had to... no, that's a lie. I didn't have to. But I did.)

Company: Kecia, impatient moviegoer but dedicated friend; Ali, bride-to-be and film maven; Cuellar, newbie to my apartment and fellow bridal-party-bridesperson come fall; Adam, Gabe, Paul and Ryan, tribunal of homo moviephiles, lined up in a row on the couch

Cuisine: it was a feast! Paul brought white chocolate puffcorn (right? I didn't get any!), Cuellar and Ali brought homemade guac (with peas in it!?), peanut butter M&Ms and a plate of smelly cheeses and weird crackers (amen), and I created a fantastical new themed creation. Popcorn with olive oil, cumin, turmeric and Hungarian sweet paprika. Moroccan popcorn. I call it... Moroccorn. It could have been a flavortastrophe but it was actually delicious.

All right. It's December, 1941. Never mind that this for me immediately conjures up Pearl Harbor: we're on the other side of the planet, lambies. But the politics of the time are very important: Morocco at the time was a protectorate of France, basically meaning it was an autonomous collective being diplomatically and militarily provided for by France. This rule didn't end until 1956, and in the early 40s, when France was under German occupation, Casablanca became a hotspot for Vichy, Italian and Nazi military officials as well as a refugee haven for those wishing to escape the Third Reich and flee to America. 

One of those refugees is Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), a fugitive leader of the Czech resistance against German rule. He has escaped from a unspecified concentration camp, which may not have struck too much of a chord with American audiences at the time, as reliable accounts of mass murder by the Nazis did not even make its way to the U.S. government until late 1941. To a contemporary audience, knowing what concentration camps did to people, Victor doesn't look like he's spent much time in a camp, but that's neither here nor there.

Victor and his wife, Ilsa (the stunning Ingrid Bergman), enter Rick's Cafe Americain, hoping to obtain letters of transit that would allow them safe passage to America from the bar's owner (and, incidentally, Ilsa's former lover), Rick Blaine (Oscar nominee Humphrey Bogart). It's very convenient that he happened upon some after being entrusted them by a crime lord. But if I was him, with that girl and that past, I maybe wouldn't want to help her out either, especially suspecting that she's still in love with Rick.

See, Rick and Ilsa had a love affair in Paris a while back, when she had believed Victor to be dead after attempting to escape the camp, but when she learned he was alive and in hiding, she left without explanation to go find Victor. Cold-hearted snake. At least she left a note!

So the whole story hinges on Rick's life-changing decision between love and virtue: does he keep Ilsa for his own, knowing she still loves him, or does he surrender the papers to her and Victor, guaranteeing them asylum at the cost of his own happiness? The fact that the entire plot hinges on this one moment gives the film a slow albeit steady pace until the very last scene when the decision is famously made, but by that time, the slow-moving story and Bogart's borderline-unlikable Rick had annoyed my whole crowd. Rick is overly sensitive (although, as Ryan pointed out, Bogie's "not sensitive enough to make me think he'd cry"), depressed and kind of a drag to be around. Watching him push everyone away, including sweet Sam the pianist and any other friend brave enough to approach him, is hard on an audience. I get that he's heartbroken, but Bogart's stoic style doesn't grab me, and I think it hampers his attempt at a character arc.

Plus, as Adam so astutely pointed out, the fact that Rick's biggest problem in his life is that he lost the girl makes him less sympathetic when the threat of real global violence, fascism and genocide loom around every corner. Shouldn't this tale seem more universal? (I keep coming back to The Best Years of Our Lives (#37 on this list) as an example of a wartime romance that works. Watching this made me want to rewatch that.) To be fair, though, like that film, Casablanca also chronicles a current conflict, and so maybe audiences really just wanted to be taken out of their lives and away from their troubles and watch an impossible and heart-wrenching romance when they went to the cinema.

The relentlessly romantic piano score provided by Sam underscores some amazing dialogue (and not just "Here's looking at you, kid" but a lot of great lines that people often forget, like "How extravagant you are, throwing away women like that. One day they may be scarce.") The film has a lot going for it, but for whatever reason it didn't strike a chord with my collected audience that night. I'm sure I'll give it several more chances in my lifetime, but just now it didn't rip at the heart strings the way I'd expected it to. Do I have higher expectations for it, given its untouchable status in the pantheons of great American cinema? Sure. Am I quicker to judge it? Maybe. Bloggy blog about it, why don'tcha.

Only two left, and the next one was recently voted by TIME Magazine readers as the greatest Best Picture winner of all time. With the Oscars on Sunday, my mind is certainly on Oscar history. The Corleones make an offer you can't refuse in The Godfather.

#4: Raging Bull

Martin Scorsese was hooked on cocaine after his success in the 1970s, but luckily was convinced to kick the habit by friends like Robert De Niro. He believed that Raging Bull would be his last film, and so he poured all his violent, drug-addled energy into making it. The result is a bloody chamber piece, telling the story of one man's fall from fame into obscurity and despair. Pretty heavy for a bright, sunny afternoon, but I'll take it. After the last one (Singin' in the Rain) it's pretty bleak up to the top of the list.

Company: Katie, spin classmate and beach-body-breakfast sous chef

Cuisine: poached eggs on a bed of kale, onion and Canadian bacon, with dill toast from Lucia's and coffee. Mmm. A champion breakfast.

Raging Bull is based on the novel of the same name, an autobiography of the middleweight boxing champion Jake La Motta (portrayed famously by Oscar winner Robert De Niro). The film, shot in stark black-and-white, begins with a epilogue in 1964, when the aging and overweight La Motta practices a comedy routine. No sooner have we recognized De Niro under sixty pounds of added weight than we flash back to 1941, when La Motta loses his first match and begins his long, slow slide out of control. He and his brother, Joey (an unknown-turned-Oscar-nominee Joe Pesci), plot some involvement with local Mafia lords to get him his championship.

It's around this time that he falls for the beautiful and barely legal Vicki (another unknown and Oscar nominee Cathy Moriarty). He sees her every day at the pool, and in one of the film's most beautiful and understated sequences, he spends the day with her and finally gets her into bed. Never mind his steak-toting wife at home. After one table-smashing shouting match, she's out of the picture.

Just as he's about to ride the Vicki train, however, he has a change of heart, runs into the bathroom and pours a pitcher of ice water down his shorts. What's with the sudden change of heart? We don't really get a chance to find out before Cathy balls up and makes a move. "What are you doing? What are you doing?" he asks her, knowing full well what she's doing. He must also know why he reconsidered, but we aren't let in on this rare moment of weakness.

I guess that example underlines one problem I have with the story here: we're never really made aware of the larger relevance of Jake's story. What's the larger social significance of his pride, all his tragic flaws that make up one badly flawed human being, where's the redemption? And if the point is that there is no redemption, what are we meant to take away from the story that makes us better people for having seen it?

There are few flaws that Jake La Motta doesn't have: he's quick to anger, full of all-encompassing pride and jealousy, desperately needy but eternally suspicious of everyone around him. There's very little to like, really, which might account for the initial mixed reviews when this film hit theaters in 1980. It's gained respect and notoriety since then, especially as Scorsese proved himself to be one of the most respected and quintessentially American film directors of the last century (his Taxi Driver and Goodfellas also made this list; very few directors in the last quarter of the 20th century have three cited films), and is now regarded as one of the very best if not the best film of the 1980s. But I always hear that and think: but the 80s had only just begun! My point is, we love our central characters to have at least a shred of humanity, and it's maybe not until the epilogue portion of the film, where De Niro's La Motta is virtually unrecognizable, when we see through the cracks.

Okay well, that's just an amazing shot: a perfect metaphor for the end of La Motta's boxing career.

I know it's all autobiographical but all the Mafia tie-ins feel tacked on somehow. Maybe I just wanted this whole film to function like the middle section, where we see La Motta in the ring alternately contrasted with his rocky personal life. Do I want more joy, more redemption, more self-sacrifice? I suppose I do in real life, so maybe I want it in my movies too. Is that wrong?

My main struggle with Raging Bull is that I don't know what I'm supposed to take away from it. It's a biography, yes, and it's a sports drama, sure. I'm not a huge sports guy but I think that of all sports, boxing is the most exciting, the most visceral, and the most easily cinematic, so I can get behind the world being created here. I just don't know what the larger relevance is.

This blog entry hasn't been so much a review as it has been a looming question I'm left with. Katie and I both wondered. Anyone care to chime in? There's certainly a lot to recommend -- the film is very artfully crafted, with some of Scorsese's best direction and a legendary central performance from De Niro -- but as a whole it left me cold. Should a film ranked #4 on a list like this make me feel that way?

Chime in, please! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Next up: we'll always have Casablanca.

#5: Singin' in the Rain

"What a glorious feelin'!"

You get closer and closer to the top of this list and you have to assume that there's very few people who would vote against these top films, and without having screened the final four on the list (though I've seen them all), I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who can resist the charm of Gene Kelly's 1952 musical fantasy Singin' in the Rain. I'm sure those people exist somewhere, but I don't know that I ever want to meet them.

Company: Ryan and Paul, movie buffs; Sheena and Bob, epicures; Katie and Matt, sleepy latecomers; Alex, descant specialist; Adam, musical loyalist; Elizabeth, loves older men; Andi, can make do with older men; Bret, Donald O'Connor reincarnate; Hannah, blonde bombshell

Cuisine: Alex's genius theme idea was "breakfast for dinner" (good mornin', good MORNin'!) so we had a brunchy smorgasbord -- bacon, onion and cheddar frittata, hash browns, turkey bacon, yogurt parfaits, homemade donuts, coconut banana bread with lime glaze (thanks Elizabeth!) and mimosas upon mimosas.

1920s silent-film stars Don Lockwood (choreographer and co-director Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Oscar nominee Jean Hagen) are on the red carpet for their newest picture (I love that time when they'd call them 'pictures') when a journalist's questions propels us into a flashback.

It just so happens that Don Lockwood started out in vaudeville with his lifelong pal Cosmo Brown (the unbelievably talented Donald O'Connor), as they'll prove to you in a stand-out number in a movie full of stand-out numbers. Cosmo is mainly a musician, but somehow just as skilled a hoofer as Don but half as famous. He's got the weird, buggy-blue-eyes thing going for him, and Gene Kelly is just as handsome as possible, so I'll buy this for now. (Actually, Jean Dujardin in The Artist is 100% the French handsomeness reincarnation of Gene Kelly. Just saying.)

Lockwood escapes a mob of fans by jumping from a trolley car into the moving convertible driven by Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds, only 19 years old!!), a stage actress who pretends not to know Lockwood and scoffs at his silent cred. This tete-a-tete sets up a little argument about craft, stage vs. screen, chops vs. looks. Film is so much more about looking right, hitting your mark, giving the best performance at least once within the takes, but in Kathy's profession you've got to do all those things right the first time, and eight times a week! In what other films does this stage vs. screen conversation come up? I'm actually very curious because I can barely think of any. Probably a lot of older Hollywood musicals like this one.

Well, if there was ever a meet-cute in a movie, it might be this, but as a couple of my movie going friends mentioned, you're never really that invested in this relationship. Never mind that Gene Kelly is twice Debbie's age: it's just not that important in the grand scheme of the film, which is much more interesting as a study of old vs. new.

And that debate is never more deftly articulated in the scene in which the head of Don's studio screens a short demonstration of the Vitaphone talking picture, in which the audio and video components of the film are synchronized. It's a breakthrough in technology, but the guests at the party are unimpressed, calling it a trick. Do they genuinely believe this, or are they actually impressed and hiding it because it would eventually spell doom for their silent-film careers? The film follows the effects this new technology has on the industry, and how it eventually saves Lockwood's film The Duelling Cavalier from destroying his career.

Lina Lamont, however, is not so lucky in this transition. Her grating voice eventually dooms this film's villain, who is based at least roughly on Norma Talmadge, a silent-film star of the 1920s who fell out of fashion and into obscurity with the rise of talkies. So so interesting that Lina Lamont is a loving homage to Talmadge, while Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond is a malevolent tribute to the great film star. In reading about Talmadge, this quote alone makes me want to know more: supposedly after she fell out of favor with audiences and was accosted by fans, she said "Get away, dears. I don't need you anymore, and you don't need me." Wow.

Well, our three heroes are the lucky ones, with voices and personalities that make an easy transition for them into talking films. But we really pick up on that from the moment we meet them all, and there's no question that they'll win the day. Maybe that's why the plot doesn't really do anything for me. I hate to say that it's really just filler in between the legendary musical numbers (like Cosmo's astounding comedic showcase "Make Em Laugh," pictured above), but I'll take it if it means I get treated to these musical fantasies.

Each of these numbers, particularly "Make Em Laugh," "Good Mornin', Good Mornin'," "Moses Supposes" and the title number, all exist outside of the realm of reality in their own way. Don and Cosmo are trained vaudeville performers, used to mugging for crowds (even hostile ones), so it's no surprise that Cosmo would create a whole world for himself to dance, flip and catapult himself around a sound stage. Film, however, doesn't give the same immediate satisfaction that the stage does, putting one more check in the column for Kathy's earlier argument. They're just different media, and when a character starts to sing in a film this way, well... it means something different.

When Cosmo, Kathy and Don begin to dance "Good Mornin'," they're so elated that they've discovered how to save Don's career that they're taken away to a fantasy world where they express themselves through dance. It's an equal artistic representation of what they're feeling as a more naturalistic monologue or scene, but the skill they possess transcends the medium somehow. It's very difficult to explain -- I'm not even sure I'm making any sense. I guess what I mean to say is that these dance sequences, so vivid and exciting, lift the film that might otherwise be a drag to a height that cannot be disputed.

So it's so baffling to me to hear that Gene Kelly was not the first choice to play Don Lockwood. Supposedly he was cast once the role was more tailor-made for him. Originally Howard Keel, a major musical film star, was considered when Don Lockwood was more of a Western-film actor. But when you think about what the film ended up doing for musicals, for dance, and for Gene Kelly, it's hard to imagine anyone else ever taking his place. He's so at ease, and in all these dance sequences you can see him just a little more at ease than anyone else, simply because he choreographed it. Notice the freeze frame above. O'Connor and Reynolds are looking straight into the camera, professional, poised, spot-on, proving they can keep up. But Kelly's focus is upward, so care-free, so uninhibited. It's very telling.

You hear these amazing stories about the filming of these sequences: that O'Connor had to be hospitalized after throwing himself all over the place for "Make Em Laugh," that Reynolds' feet were bleeding after "Good Mornin'," that Kelly himself was running a 103-degree temperature when he performed the blissful title number. These factoids make watching these numbers all the more satisfying. I was just reading a review of a new book about the Obamas that said "we like our warriors happy," referring to alleged complaints by our current president about the stresses of his job (duh) and his eagerness to return to normalcy. That's different, of course, from these performers, but never once in these sequences to you see any of them break for even a micro-second. Watch Gene Kelly's face and forget his feet: he's doing what God put him on earth to do. And can you get more from a performer than watching that level of commitment and confidence? I don't imagine you can.

For me, you could strip everything away from this movie and leave me nothing but the musical sequences. Even the ending, with Lina disgraced and Kathy running up the aisles away from her fame, seems somehow false. Why would Kathy, a struggling chorus girl, not delight in her newfound fame? The holes are filled to excess with the colorful, imaginative dance and storytelling. I'd almost say that this film holds its place on the list for the same reason that Sophie's Choice does -- two movies that could not be more different except that they both glorify and revel in one legendary performer at their absolute peak. Anyone care to comment?

However, Kelly didn't receive acclaim for this performance at the time the same way Streep did for hers in 1982, maybe partially because he had just been awarded an honorary Oscar the year before, "in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film" for the far inferior Best Picture winner An American in Paris. History has been much kinder to this film that only managed two Oscar nominations (for Hagen and for its original score), proving to me once again that the Academy's place in history is more a social and cultural benchmark rather than an actual gauge of talent and skill. "I'm haaappy againnn..."

Only four more to go, and none nearly as cheery as this one. Hold on, folks, we're almost there! Next up is Scorsese with DeNiro as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull.

#6: Gone with the Wind

 There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton fields called the Old South...

 The title of this one looms so large that the screen can't even contain it all at once. Max Steiner's score sweeps us away immediately and we're launched into Victor Fleming's 1939 southern saga Gone with the Wind, adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Winner of ten Academy Awards in what would be one of the greatest years in American cinema, Gone with the Wind remains to this day Hollywood's indisputable champion of melodrama and historical fiction. AND it's even fun to watch!

Company: not quite enough for a cotillion, but we made do -- Ryan and Paul, our most magnanimous hosts; Elizabeth, de Havifan (a fan of de Havilland); Kecia, swooning for Rhett; Bret, which rhymes with Rhett; and Hannah, a fair Southern belle.

Cuisine: we never went hungry again. Kecia made chicken, shrimp and andouille sausage gumbo with brown rice and black bean corn bread, and Paul made some delicious taco dip. Drinks were a-flowing.

So I guess I was mistaken all this time in believing that our last movie, Lawrence of Arabia, was the longest movie on the list, but Gone with the Wind beats it by eight minutes (twenty-two if you include the overture, entr'acte and exit music). However, due to the long stretches of inaction and sand, that last movie feels about twice as long as this one, which opens on our heroine giggling and flirting with two young soldiers and never lets up for a minute. Scarlett O'Hara (Oscar winner Vivien Leigh, winning her first of two Oscars playing Southern belles) has every boy's attention. Charming to a fault, we see immediately that she's vain and selfish. Once another girl is mentioned, we hear, "who want to know anything about her?" No one matters but Scarlett. Leigh plays her with great relish and incredible detail. I love knowing that one of the other main choices to play this role was Charlie Chaplin's wife at the time, Paulette Goddard, whose ambiguous marital status at the time was thought to be too tumultous and might bring controversy and scandal to filming. Leigh, though, was living with Lawrence Olivier at the time, as both of their spouses had refused to divorce them. C'mon!

Anyhow, anyhow. The story involves the long, involved, on-again-off-again romance between this plantation owner's daughter and the handsome Rhett Butler (Oscar nominee and dreamboat Clark Gable), who's been disowned by his family in South Carolina and breaks the mold by assuring his Confederate allies that they cannot win a ground war against the North (which history would validate). At nearly four hours, the film takes its sweet time and letting this romance fester, flounder and find its way, as Scarlett makes her way through life, husbands, war and tragedy.

 

William Cameron Menzies, the man who invented the job title "production designer," was awarded a technical Oscar "for outstanding achievement in the use of color for the enhancement of dramatic mood," and he and the art director and cinematographer certainly use color to enhance and dramatize every scene. How much less visually exciting would this huge charity bazaar be in black and white, especially considering that in this scene Scarlett's dressed in black, mourning her first husband, and is taunted by color everywhere?

 Can you find Waldo Scarlett?

When war ravages her town in the Atlanta Campaign, Scarlett is obligated to stay behind and fulfill her promise to her beloved Ashley (Leslie Howard) that she take care of his pregnant wife and her dearest friend Melanie (a wonderful Olivia de Havilland). She's out of her mourning attire, but her world is suddenly drained of color as she wanders through the seemingly jaundiced expanse of wounded soldiers, searching for a doctor to help her. God knows Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) won't be much if any help. ("I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!") In this way, Fleming helps us to see Scarlett's world through her eyes, matching the visual palette to the colorful emotional landscape of the novel.

"As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!"

I mean, GOD. How much burnt orange is there in this film? This iconic image of Scarlett standing on the near-ruins of her family's beloved plantation Tara sets up parallel storylines as the south is defeated and the age of Reconstruction begins, both for the deeply divided nation and the flawed but admittedly resourceful and resilient Ms. O'Hara. She quickly puts her remaining family and newly-freed slaves (nothing much is said about them, more on that later) to work picking cotton on her farm and struggling to get by.

The second half of this epic story begins with Scarlett at her lowest low point, and observes her as she connives, lies and cheats her way into a place of wealth and power in the lives of the men she doesn't love and the women she betrays. Nearly everyone sees her for the deceitful bitch she is, save maybe her second husband Frank Kennedy (Carroll Nye) whose untimely death leaves the door open for Rhett to finally propose, and dear sweet Melanie, the only kind and virtuous person in the whole movie (save maybe Mammy, played by the inspiring Hattie McDaniel).

There's been a lot of criticism about the film's depiction of black slaves, particularly their supposed congeniality and eagerness to fight for their country. The film premiered nearly seventy-five years after slavery was abolished, so it was nearly out of the contemporary mindset of the time, but Jim Crow laws still ruled the south and true civil rights wouldn't be won for another couple decades. It's such a sting to hear that although McDaniel was rightfully awarded the Best Supporting Actress prize for this film, her statue was a statuette, in a way counting her as 3/5 of a actress. Her performance has stood the test of time, as complete as she could make it. It's a historical character, one way out of date, and she's not really given much chance to do anything besides be a stereotype, but her commanding presence leads the way through the film, and we have Hattie to thank.

The film's psychological torture games between Scarlett and Rhett feel as contemporary and electric as any written today, thanks to the winning screenplay by Sidney Howard. I have a feeling I should really read this book. I love the similarities between these scenes and the fights that Leigh has with Marlon Brando twelve years later in A Streetcar Named Desire. I think we know it will never work out, that Scarlett is too selfish and too conniving to know any other way to act, any other way to treat fellow human beings, and even when the ultimate tragedy strikes and she's finally changed, it's all been for naught. It's too late. He doesn't give a damn. Do we relish in watching her suffer? Do we love the schaudenfreude? Or do we want Rhett and Scarlett to be together forever? Is tomorrow another day? We want a happy ending... don't we?

No matter what, I think audiences can agree that Scarlett O'Hara gets the blood boiling, and her epic journey through love and war is one that hasn't yet been matched. Boy. I had only seen this once before in college, and it was nice to see it again, knowing who everyone was, knowing how it would all end, and taking that into context. I recently heard a study on NPR that said people actually enjoying reading books when they know the ending, since some of the anxiety is gone and one can pick up on foreshadowing details that would otherwise be missed. That's a good a reason as any I can think of to rewatch a lot of these movies once I'm done with this list. Gone with the Wind might have to wait a while, but I'll definitely come back to it... sometime when I have four hours to spare... and some more of that gumbo.

Only five left! I can't believe it. How can you argue against any of them? Next up: the only lightness anywhere to be found until the end, it seems. Gene Kelly is soaked while he's Singin' in the Rain.

#7: Lawrence of Arabia

 

We finally got to this, the last film on the list I haven't previously seen! It's shameful and strange but maybe the only real thing I knew about David Lean's 1962 sandy epic Lawrence of Arabia was that it's long. In fact, I remember a Foxtrot strip (remember that strip?) in which the kid is on the couch and the dad walks over with a chess board.

Dad: Hey Jason, wanna play chess?

Jason: I can't, Dad. I just started watching Lawrence of Arabia.

Dad: That's okay. I'll wait.

That was really it. The movie's length is the whole joke. And in a way, that's okay: it's definitely a major investment, so luckily I had delicious food and camaraderie.

Company: Elizabeth, former and future lover of Omar Sharif, owner of burlap-encased copy of this movie, opponent of saffron

 

Cuisine: quinoa with Moroccan winter squash and carrot stew. This required several spices I didn't own (turmeric? Hungarian sweet paprika??) and it was certainly a two-hander (I was on the quinoa, Elizabeth was on the stew). So delicious, and theme-perfect! Special note: don't worry about the saffron, it's just a fancy expensive way to add color to this already colorful plate. Also, plenty of coffee to get through the three-and-a-half-hour beast, and maybe the dregs of a bag of Christmas confections.

The film is based on the life of T. E. Lawrence (played here by Peter O'Toole, achieving his first of eight Oscar nominations), an officer in the British Army at the early part of the twentieth century who was sent into Arabia on special assignment and became a liaison for the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks between 1916 and 1918. Is this something that I knew anything about prior to watching the movie? Absolutely not. But about fifteen minutes in Peter blows out the flame in his hand and we are immediately transported to ...

... the desert. Hot. Desolate. Sprawling. Lawrence and his guide are in unfamiliar territory and the guide makes the mistake of drinking from a well that doesn't belong to him. Right on cue: here comes Sherif Ali (Oscar nominee Omar Sharif) to shoot him for his insolence. That'll teach him. And he would shoot Lawrence too, but Lawrence makes a case for himself and asks to be led to Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness), the leader of the Arab revolt.

Faisal has been pressured to retreat but Lawrence proposes a surprise attack on the important coastal town of Aqaba. Attacking from sea would almost certainly be expected and lead them to certain death, so Lawrence proposes attacking from the rear, which would require crossing the vast Nefud desert, considered by everyone but Lawrence to be impassable. Ali is very skeptical but a group of fifty men follow Lawrence into the desert.

Long stretches of the movie look like this.

In this cinematic world, crossing a desert on camelback is pretty much considered an action sequence. And it's a loooong action sequence. Lean is obviously keeping his audience on a camel's back with Lawrence and his troupe, asking us to journey for weeks without rest until we reach the oasis on the other side. It's not that it's not entertaining, although it really isn't, but we know the stakes are high and that keeps (some of) us engaged.

The group successfully reaches the end of their journey but Lawrence wins even more respect from his allies when, noticing that one camel has lost its passenger, he heads back into the desert to retrieve his fallen comrade, something that most would consider a suicide mission. He is crowned, hailed as a savior.

 

He's given traditional Arab robes to wear, and he pulls them off. (Fun fact: Noel Coward said that if Peter O'Toole had been any prettier in this movie, they would have had to call it Florence of Arabia. Catty!)

Lawrence is painted in the film as egotistical, and Lean alludes to Christ comparisons when he's hailed by his Arab allies. Not that he didn't do a lot of great things, but boy, he loves being loved. He was well-educated and was very familiar with Arab and Bedouin culture, and even tells his guide near the beginning of his journey that he's "different" than the other people in his home county of Oxfordshire. O'Toole plays him with great immediacy and wisdom. Two of my favorites quotes of his say a lot about his character: near the beginning of the film before he heads into the desert, he puts out a match with his fingers, and a friend tries to do the same.

William Potter: Ooh, that damn well hurts.

T. E. Lawrence: Certainly it hurts.

William Potter: Well, what's the trick then?

T. E. Lawrence: The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.

I love this mind-over-matter philosophy; certainly it must come in handy when crossing inhospitable terrains like he will do for the next several hours.

Oops quicksand.

The other comes when Gasim, the man Lawrence saved from the desert, kills one of Faisal's men over a dispute, and Faisal notes that he must be put to death to quell tensions between the tribes.

Prince Faisal: Gasim's time has come, Lawrence. It is written.

T.E. Lawrence: Nothing is written. 

Sure, you could read this arrogance and perhaps even cultural or moral superiority, but Lawrence is making the point that nothing is predestined. It is not "written," for example, that they should all perish by attempting to cross the Nefud (which none of them do). Extraordinary things happen when people have faith that they can happen. A sweet, simple lesson.

The film was awarded seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Director, as well as many deserved technical awards for cinematography, art direction, and the sweeping score by Maurice Jarre, who creates one of those themes that stays with you long after the movie's over. It reminded me of Taxi Driver, the way the theme was used so often, almost to a fault, to drill it so far into your brain that it would always bring you right back into the world of the film. Peter O'Toole lost his first of eight Oscars to Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird, and I think that history has validated that. But poor poor Peter.

"He's the most shameless exhibitionist since Barnum and Bailey."

One thing I will say, though, is that this film ranks maybe right behind The Bridge on the River Kwai as the least American film on this list that claims to be made up of American films. I believe the producer Sam Spiegel and the screenwriters Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson are all American, but outside of that, there's nothing much American about it. It's a British story, directed by an Englishman, filmed in the middle East, with a British and Arabian cast and almost certainly financed outside of America. It doesn't make it a bad inclusion on a list of great movies, but great American movies? I'd like to see some justification for this. Anyone?

ANYhow. The film follows Lawrence's fall from grace, his exploits in helping the rebellion, and his emotional journey, torn between his British imperialist roots and his new Arab comrades. Heavy, sandy stuff.

Ultimately it's a worthwhile experience and I think one that might benefit from multiple viewings if you can stomach it. It's a lot of names to keep straight, a lot of guys in dusty robes, a lot of strife. It's not my favorite story but I think if you view it as a biography of a major political figure, the ending becomes pretty remarkable. I'll need to watch this again in a few years. I have a feeling this was just a primer. Elizabeth, you in? We'll make that stew again! :)

Next up: we're making gumbo and setting fire to Atlanta! We'll never go hungry again with Gone with the Wind.

2011 Movie Review

Another year of movies!

I always wish I could see more, especially current releases, but time and finances don't always allow it. This year was particularly busy for me so I got fewer in than I'd like, but still saw some great ones! For the first time making this note, I had a tough time choosing the worst of the year. And by that I mean there weren't that many that I could label that way. Most of the films I saw were really wonderful. I saw 74 films this year, which for me is pretty average.

2005: 69 (Dogville).
2006: 79 (Little Miss Sunshine).
2007: 87 (Ratatouille).
2008: 74 (WALL-E).
2009: 85 (Up in the Air).
2010: 75 (The Social Network / Toy Story 3)
2011: 74.

I also kept going with my big movie blog project -- although I had hoped to finish before the year was through, I got through 38 more (18 of which I'd seen) and decided not to rush the last few since they're all such classics. Only seven left to go!

When I got to making the top ten and choosing a favorite, one stood out among the top -- and I wonder if I'm cheating since it's the very last film I saw the whole year! But there were so many breathtaking moments, so many delightful performances, and so much to recommend in Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist that it had to be my favorite for the year. Plus, as my friend pointed out, it's "for everyone who loves to love movies about people who love movies." What's not to love? :)

 

Here's my two cents everyone. Happy 2012 -- and cheers to a new year of moviegoing!

My Top Ten of 2011 

• The Artist (my favorite!) 
• Beautiful Thing
• Before Sunset 
• The Best Years of Our Lives
• Blue Valentine
• Bridesmaids
• The General
• The Help
• Rabbit Hole
• A Town Called Panic

The Next Ten

• 2001: A Space Odyssey  
• ¡Atame! (Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down!)
• Beginners
• Catfish
• The Descendants
• Double Indemnity
• Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part II
• King Kong (1933) 
• The Red Balloon 
• Tangled

Amazing Performances

• Nicole Kidman and Dianne Wiest in Rabbit Hole 
• Madeline Kahn in  History of the World: Part I 
• Emma Stone in Easy A (totally saves the movie)
• Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg in  Antichrist 
• Everyone but especially Harold Russell in  The Best Years of Our Lives 
• Sessue Hayakawa in The Bridge on the River Kwai
• James Franco in 127 Hours
• Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
• Martin Sheen in  Apocalypse Now 
• Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in  Before Sunset 
• Christian Bale in The Fighter
• Everyone but especially Kristin Wiig and Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids
• Dianne Wiest in Bullets Over Broadway 
• Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity
• Colin Firth in The King’s Speech 
• Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 
• Alan Rickman in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II 
• Everyone but especially Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
• Jane Darwell in The Grapes of Wrath 
• Ryan Gosling (should have been Oscar nominated) and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine 
• Buster Keaton in The General
• Everyone in  Beautiful Thing 
• Everyone in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (really)
• Everyone but especially Lesley Manville in  Another Year 
• Antonio Banderas and Victoria Abril in  ¡Atame! 
• George Clooney, Judy Greer and Shailene Woodley in The Descendants 
• Everyone in The Help… holy cow.
• Christopher Plummer in Beginners
• Everyone but especially Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bujo in The Artist

Great Moments/Scenes/Lines

• “Girl from earlier!?” (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World)
• Choosing the escorts (History of the World: Part I)
• Pushing Tracy’s face (The Philadelphia Story)
• Intimacy in the cinema (Midnight Cowboy)
• “Chaos reigns.” (Antichrist)
• The bridge collapse (The Bridge on the River Kwai)
• Springtime for Hitler (The Producers)
• Arriving at Kurtz’s camp (Apocalypse Now)
• Pick nearly any line from Bridesmaids but I especially love Annie’s drunken rant on the plane
• “Don’t speak.” (Bullets Over Broadway)
• The train crash (Super 8)
• The battle for Hogwarts (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II)
• “Nobody baby but you and me” (Blue Valentine)
• Riding away absent-mindedly on the side rods of the train (The General)
• HAL’s destruction (2001: A Space Odyssey)
• Lanterns (Tangled)
• The sex scene (¡Atame!)
• “Eat. My. Shit.” (The Help)
• So many moments but absolutely the sound of the glass (The Artist)

Best Endings

• The Red Balloon
• The Best Years of Our Lives
• Before Sunset
• Double Indemnity
• Beautiful Thing
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• The Descendants
• The Help
• The Artist

Worst of the Year

• Alice in Wonderland (dreadful from start to finish, and it won two Oscars!) 
• Shane (redundant) 
• Terms of Endearment (rubbed me the wrong way) 
• Return to Oz (takes everything wonderful about that world and makes it charmless)
• And I tried to find a fifth to round it out, since I normally do, but that's actually all I can come up with. Maybe The Fog, but it was still enjoyable even if it was unoriginal. I did all right this year!

All 74 Movies I Saw (for the first time) in 2011

• Rabbit Hole
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
• Alice in Wonderland
• A Town Called Panic
• Shane
• History of the World: Part I
• The Philadelphia Story
• Easy A
• Animal Kingdom
• Midnight Cowboy
• Stagedoor
• King Kong (1933)
• Star Wars
• Elaine Stritch: At Liberty
• The Red Balloon
• Antichrist
• Sondheim: The Birthday Concert
• Catfish
• Patrik 1,5
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
• The Best Years of Our Lives
• The Bridge on the River Kwai
• Soapdish
• Terms of Endearment
• What's Up, Doc? (1972)
• The Producers (1968)
• 127 Hours
• Stepmom
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
• Wordplay
• The Maltese Falcon
• Before Sunset
• Apocalypse Now
• The Fighter
• Bridesmaids
• Bullets Over Broadway
• Beaches
• Double Indemnity
• A League of Their Own
• The King's Speech
• High Noon
• Super 8
• Splash
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
• True Grit (2010)
• The Grapes of Wrath
• Blue Valentine
• Chinatown
• Evening Primrose
• Life During Wartime
• Never Been Kissed
• L'Illusioniste
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
• On the Waterfront
• The General
• Return to Oz
• Beautiful Thing
• The Searchers
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Tangled
• The Fog (1980)
• City Lights
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
• After Stonewall
• Inside Job
• Another Year
• A State of Mind
• The Navigator
• ¡Átame!
• The Descendants
• The Help
• Beginners
• The Artist

#8: Schindler's List

By my count, this list includes six films having to do directly with World War II, if you include The Best Years of Our Lives since it chronicles the veterans' experience. Saving Private Ryan is really the only other film about the war, taking place during wartime. Interestingly, two musicals (The Sound of Music and Cabaret) are both set on the verge of war with a growing Nazi presence. And Sophie's Choice, while taking place after the great conflict, is directly concerned with its title character's experience in the Holocaust as a Polish Catholic. But as far as this list goes, only Steven Spielberg's 1993 Holocaust drama Schindler's List holds a literal and figurative candle to the Jewish experience. Hoo boy.

Company: Kecia, vegetarian chefstress; Jeremy, vegetarian; Elizabeth, movie-snack philanthropist

Cuisine: Oh boy. Darling roomie made the first dish, a baked portabella mushroom stuffed with quinoa, spinach and carmelized onions and topped with pecorino, with green beans with tomatoes and almonds. Jeremy made the broccolini bruschetta on the right. I've never been happier. Elizabeth also brought Sun Chips (the best kind, Garden Salsa) and Junior Mints to contribute. A feast for all, and we needed it.

Oskar Schindler (Oscar nominee Liam Neeson) was a real German businessman whose heroics were chronicled in Thomas Keneally's novel "Schindler's Ark." By employing Jews (mostly Polish) in his factories, and through his powers of persuasion and charm, he saved over 1,000 of them from certain death in concentration camps. Neeson portrays him as a towering, kind bear of a man, at ease with everyone, including the Nazi officials who see through his profiteering plots and seek to kill his work force. His warmth is portrayed beautifully by Neeson, but we don't really see much vulnerability to this central character until the emotional ending. More on that later.

Meanwhile, Oscar nominee Ralph Fiennes gives us one of the great screen villains of all time in Schutzstaffel captain Amon Goeth, sadistic commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp where a portion of the film takes place. Fiennes gave an interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum after the film was released and said this about playing the part:

"Evil is cumulative. It happens. People believe that they’ve got to do a job, they’ve got to take on an ideology, that they’ve got a life to lead; they’ve got to survive, a job to do, it’s every day inch by inch, little compromises, little ways of telling yourself this is how you should lead your life and suddenly then these things can happen. I mean, I could make a judgment myself privately, this is a terrible, evil, horrific man. But the job was to portray the man, the human being. There’s a sort of banality, that everydayness, that I think was important. And it was in the screenplay. In fact, one of the first scenes with Oskar Schindler, with Liam Neeson, was a scene where I’m saying “You don’t understand how hard it is, I have to order so many-so many meters of barbed wire and so many fencing posts and I have to get so many people from A to B.” And, you know, he’s sort of letting off steam about the difficulties of the job. And so I suppose you can step back and that is where the evil is, when you can step back and look at it."

It's a remarkable performance, how unflinching and all-encompassing it is. Terrifying.

While the acting is top-notch, it's Oscar winner Spielberg's hand behind the camera that's most effective here. Besides parallel bookends in color, the film is nearly entirely shot in black and white, a very specific choice that my friends and I discussed. B&W brings the film back to its historical roots, certainly, and the relentlessly bleak subject matter lends itself well to a colorless scope. But it's a major decision to make a film this way in 1993, and I think Spielberg was commenting on the scope of the atrocities committed against the Jews in WWII. It's that whole idea that when everything is special, nothing is special. No one stands out; the faces of these victims blend with each other more wholly in this format than they perhaps would in color. There's a hopelessness everywhere, particularly in the liquidation of the ghettos and the portraits of life inside Plaszow, that strike a darker chord without the relief of color. I was especially moved by the moment when the female prisoners smeared blood on their cheeks to make themselves more appealing to the officials, hoping that would save them. Without color, the blood looks to our eye like dirt; in the eyes of the Schutzstaffel, it might as well be.

The only brief glimpse of color in this over-three-hour-long saga is a girl in a red coat, first wandering through a ghetto and later dead on a wheelbarrow. It's a humanizing moment for Schindler to watch an individual's journey through this experience, especially being a Nazi himself. He may have been motivated by money at first, since Jewish labor certainly cost less for him, but this moment confirms with the audience that he cared deeply for these people and was surely haunted by them long after the war was over.

Schindler goes toe-to-toe with Goeth, convincing him that even the frailest of his Schindlerjuden ("Schindler Jews") were necessary workers on his production lines. He's aided by his Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (the wonderful and understated Ben Kingsley) who claims that one needs "three things in life: a good doctor, a forgiving priest, and a clever accountant." Luckily for the Schindlerjuden, he fills that third role.

"Years from now the young will ask with wonder about this day."

But Spielberg cuts back and forth between these tiny glimpses of sunlight and the darker, horrible realities of the camps. How can someone not shudder when this kid climbs into a toilet to hide, only to be told by other kids hiding there that there's no room for him? If there's no room for him in a shit hole, where does he belong? Oh it gives me goosebumps.

For Spielberg (whose other films on this list include crowd-pleasers Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial) to step into this delicate territory could not have been easy, and it's fascinating to read about the critical reaction to this film from the Jewish community. For example, Claude Lanzmann, director of Shoah, a nine-hour documentary about the Holocaust by which I'm intrigued but have never and might never sit through, blasted Spielberg by calling his film "a kitschy melodrama" that didn't show the horrors of war the way he thought was necessary. Lanzmann believed that after his film was made nothing else needed to be said, which is colossally arrogant and forced Spielberg to defend his film as accurate. Naturally, when bringing an adaptation of real events to the screen, history needs to be altered somewhat; dealing with events that are so close to peoples' hearts is very difficult, and I'm sure that no one could ever please everyone on this. Schindler somehow managed it, and the film went on to receive seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Score (John Williams, how do you manage to be at the top of your form every. damn. time??)

"Whoever saves one life saves the world in time."

When the war is over and the camps are liberated, Schindler gathers his friends (whom he knows by name when he dictates the list to Stern!) for three minutes of silence for those they've lost. We are silent, too, as Spielberg commands his audience to silence. How many directors can reach through the characters that way and grip an audience so firmly? Wow. It's an incredible moment of gratitude; you can feel the endless thanks and unpayable debt in this crowd gathered in the factory. And yet, Schindler says:

"I could have done more."

 Game over, composure.

A beautiful and respectful epilogue, in which the real-life Schindlerjuden walk arm-in-arm with their onscreen counterparts to pay respects at Schindler's grave on Mount Zion in Israel, acts as a eulogy for the dead and a legacy for the living. Williams' score is never more moving than at this moment, the first moment where I really noticed it, as the reverence and absence of dialogue brings it to the forefront. Wow.

Supposedly Roman Polanski abandoned his Holocaust film project when this one came out. Not a bad move. I don't think this film is the definitive look at the Holocaust (no film can claim to be the definitive anything, can it?) but it's certainly a historic and masterful memorial for the lives lost and saved. Beautiful.

Next: a little break until after Christmas, and then we don sandals and endurance for what I believe is the longest film on the entire list (and the last one I haven't previously seen!): Lawrence of Arabia. Until then, happy holidays!