Category: The Classics

Star Wars (1977)

“Star Wars” remains a thoroughly fun, exciting, inventive, colorful, imaginative and in fact masterful film. George Lucas’s saga is one of the most influential films of all time.

I have seen “Star Wars” a billion times. In fact, even if you’ve never actually watched the original “Star Wars,” you’ve seen it.

I physically sat down and watched “Star Wars” from start to finish for the first time since probably the prequels, and I watched it with a friend who had never seen the film. His reaction was without surprise, because every plot point, image, line of dialogue, sound effect and more has been done to death in parodies, fan fiction, what have you.

For instance, seeing the Mos Eisley Cantina scene did little for him in terms of visual wonder because all the characters, however unique they once were, are all too familiar today, even if no film has ever modeled anything like it since. The same will go for when he sees Episode V and learns that Darth Vader is Luke’s father, or when he sees Episode VI and learns Luke and Leia are siblings.

The reason people are today introduced to “Star Wars” at a young age is not because the film is dated (which in a way, it horribly is) but because only with the most innocent, naïve minds can you recreate the thrill and fantasy audiences felt watching the film in 1977.

But enjoying it has nothing to do with age or time period. “Star Wars” remains a thoroughly fun, exciting, inventive, colorful, imaginative and in fact masterful film. George Lucas’s saga is the pinnacle of space opera, one of the most influential films of all time and arguably where modern film begins. Continue reading “Star Wars (1977)”

The Kid (1921)

If Charlie Chaplin was not the stuntman, exhibitionist Buster Keaton was or the hard working everyman Harold Lloyd was, he surely made us cry the most.

“The Kid,” by far his most famous feature film firmly rooted in the silent era, is a lovely mix of sympathetic pathos and devilish slapstick.

Yet for as much as Chaplin made us feel, he was the kind of director and performer that could get a laugh from the idea of throwing a baby into a sewer. Continue reading “The Kid (1921)”

Rapid Response: The Godfather

Of course I could’ve written a full Classics piece on “The Godfather.” I could write a book on “The Godfather.”

Except I can’t write a book on “The Godfather.” There’s too much I simply do not know, too many people who have seen the film more than I have and will serve as a better expert on one of the greatest films ever made. There are non-film critics who are more familiar with “The Godfather” than I am.

And yet it is impossible not to be familiar with Francis Ford Coppola’s film. No film this critically acclaimed (it sits at #2 on the AFI Top 100 and #4 on the Sight and Sound poll) is also this widely popular and beloved (it also sits at #2 on the IMDB Top 250). I had watched the film mere months ago, and there was not a moment of the sprawling three hour epic, not even just the iconic deaths and dramatic scenes that have been copied to death, that I could not visualize. Continue reading “Rapid Response: The Godfather”

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ was labeled Disney’s Folly but proved to still be a masterpiece today.

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is a miracle of color, sound and charm. As one of the most influential and popular films of all time, Walt Disney’s pioneering animated feature set insurmountable standards that had never been seen before and have arguably still not been matched by any cartoon ever made.

It’s story is well known and well parodied. In fact, three Snow White films are now officially in production for 2012. Millions of parents now use it as an introductory film for their children, it being one of the few populist old Hollywood masterpieces suitable for children this side of “The Wizard of Oz.” So parents have grown accustomed to it, and children have learned to love it, but maybe to never fully appreciate it.

But audiences in 1937 surely did. “Snow White” won an honorary Oscar that year for being “recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field.” Continue reading “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)”

M (1931)

“M” gave the movies its first serial killer, but it would be horribly reductive to label it as just a crime procedural. Despite essentially being a “silent” foreign film on the cusp of a new era in storytelling, Fritz Lang’s “M” is so overwhelmingly acclaimed and popular (it currently sits at #53 on the IMDB Top 250 with over 46,000 user votes) because it is a brilliantly calculated, masterfully chilling and intensely suspenseful movie that seems to be timeless.

Someone has murdered a series of children in pre-war (obviously, since the movie was made in 1931) Germany, but the film is not about the man but about the city itself. With no leads, the townspeople turn on themselves. Everyone is a suspect, no one can be trusted, and the ones doing the most to end the killings are the least trustworthy of all: other criminals losing business.

“M” was later used as Nazi propaganda material, but the psychological turmoil Lang conveys through the police force’s painstakingly thorough and systematic investigation and how nothing can be done to make the unease vanish is Lang’s own critique political critique on the incumbent Nazi party.

Think of how significant of a historical relic this film is. Here we are captivated by a film without a central character, without ever actually witnessing a murder and that is not just wordless but has near inaction and silence. In everything that is done, nothing is accomplished, and somehow this generates a whirlwind of anxiety, futility and even sexual tension.

It’s important to understand when watching “M” that the movie was made when directors were reinventing the ways they told stories on film. The movie was released only four years after the first “talkie,” “The Jazz Singer,” was released in America, when the sound craze spread nationwide.

For Lang, he continued to follow the strictly economical editing and cinematography rules that governed his silent films like “Metropolis,” but everything that simply makes our skin crawl in “M” is based not just on what we hear but what we don’t hear. One of the film’s most effective suspense trick is the killer’s whistling. It’s a simple, obvious device that’s become common place, but Lang must have been a pioneer in imagining that as the whistling got louder or faster, we would be told all we needed to know about the victim’s imminent danger, and further, as it stops, what had been done.

There’s also the scene in which the murderer is hiding in an attic trying to break his way out of a locked door. His clanking on the lock followed by his clanking stopping is what gives him away, nothing visual. It flies in the face of silent film standards perfected over three decades.

And it has possibly the first great sound performance in the legendary Peter Lorre. Lang’s camera doesn’t have to do much to reveal Lorre’s insanity. His eyes seem to pop out of his skull as he agonizes over how he must kill, how he has as little control as the other criminals who view him as a monster. His terrified tone builds and builds until we almost feel sympathy for this man. Who is the real monster? The man or the system? The murder or the society incapable of fixing it?

Lorre was presented so vividly to the world when he uttered “M’s” last words. From “Casablanca” to “The Maltese Falcon,” his work would never be the same again, but he always maintained his mystique as one of the great character actors. And Lang too would have a similar fate in America. Shortly after “M,” he fled from the Nazis and became a great director of noir. Yet his reputation too would always be compared to his German films, movies so fantastical and chilling that to this day they remain some of the best films ever made.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Charles Laughton’s one and only film “The Night of the Hunter” is an all time classic.

One of the greatest of all American directors only made one film in his career. Charles Laughton made “The Night of the Hunter” in 1955 after a long and reputable career as an actor, only to see his film fail financially and be critically misunderstood. Laughton died seven years later, but today his film is seen as a true cinematic achievement.

It’s story is not completely unique, but it is a fine example of a film that bends genres, that escapes confines of time and reality without distancing itself from something relatable and that endures in its quality and impact.

Robert Mitchum plays the film’s iconic villain, the “preacher” Harry Powell. Powell claims to be a man of God, walking around with the words “love” and “hate” tattooed on his fingers to illustrate the Lord’s way of governing mankind. When he meets Ben Harper (Peter Graves) in prison and learns that Ben hid $10,000 somewhere on his property, he believes it to be a message from God.

But the secret location of the money is hidden with Ben’s two children, John and Pearl. They’ve pledged an oath of loyalty to their now executed father to protect one another and never reveal the location of the money to anyone. When Powell tracks down the family and marries their widowed mother Willa (Shelley Winters), “The Night of the Hunter” becomes a suspenseful tale of faith and trust.

It’s a brilliantly conceived thriller with a minimal concept. One party is loved and trusted by everyone else, and the other is uncertain with no one who will listen or believe. This was hardly a new concept and far from the last of its kind. But “The Night of the Hunter” models Roger Ebert’s adage that a film is not what it is about but how it is about it. Continue reading “The Night of the Hunter (1955)”

Ikiru (1952)

Some masterpiece films evoke life-affirming lessons by taking us inside the mansion of a media mogul, to the vast Arabian Desert, to the confines of a Vietnam War madman or to the far reaches beyond Jupiter’s moons. Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” does so by introducing us to a sad and lonely old man dying of cancer.

Akira Kurosawa is one of the most famous of all Japanese directors. However, he is so legendary because unlike his colleagues Ozu and Mizoguchi, Kurosawa was considered the most Western of all the Japanese auteurs. Recognizable to the public mostly thanks to his samurai epics and tales that later became spaghetti Westerns, Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” in 1952 was a human drama near the middle of his career. It is radical in the way it speaks so simply and with familiarity and yet so broadly about universal topics.

“Ikiru,” which in English means “to live,” finds a reason to live life when so many others are doing nothing more than trying to survive it. Kurosawa’s catalyst is Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura), a man who, when we first meet him, is virtually dead, only to discover he will be literally dead very soon. He’s the head bureaucrat in a dead-end office of the public services department, and he’s stayed in that position for 20 years by essentially not doing anything. “I was always busy, but I can’t think of a single thing I’ve done,” he later realizes. Continue reading “Ikiru (1952)”

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Having not seen “Blazing Saddles” in many years, I had to confirm whether or not it was actually the comedic masterpiece it for so long has been hailed as. Regardless of if the film is actually the sixth funniest movie ever made (according to AFI), it is riotously silly, hilarious, clever, controversial and influential.

Mel Brooks’ movie is the pinnacle example for how to do so many things right. It’s sad that he arguably never got it right again with any of his subsequent films. “The Producers,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Saddles” are his masterstrokes, and while the man still holds some cult acclaim today, every other parody film he made post “Saddles” is somewhat overrated.

And unlike the other two favorites, only “Saddles” is good evidence as to why. It’s tempting to not want to think about a film as silly as this, but like the Marx Brothers before him and “The Simpsons” and “South Park” after him, Brooks practically gets away with murder and it’s worth it to wonder how. Continue reading “Blazing Saddles (1974)”

American Graffiti

There was a time in American history where all the kids in town could be found at the sock hop or the local drive-up diner or simply driving down Main Street. Everyone was innocent and carefree, and the radio was playing constantly. The year is 1973, and “American Graffiti” was in theaters.

The time I’m actually describing is 1962, which George Lucas’s second film captures so beautifully. “American Graffiti” is a touching, heartfelt period piece and vignette, the kind of American film that simply doesn’t get made anymore. Perhaps Lucas’s own “Star Wars” had something to do with that.

There is not so much a story as the tiny little anecdotes of life about a group of teenagers in this small town, two of whom will be leaving for college the next day. These kids are innocent and happy, but there is truthfully a lot of drama going around. And because they express their thoughts and their problems so lovingly, we enjoy “American Graffiti” because we realize these are people we’d like to know and a time in which we’d like to escape to.

The film was a huge success, nominated for Best Picture for producer Francis Ford Coppola and Best Director Lucas. The film put Lucas on the map, allowing him the resources to actually go out and make “Star Wars,” but it also gave him and the rest of the ‘70s some valuable resources. Continue reading “American Graffiti”

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Martin Sheen said about “Apocalypse Now” that if he knew then all that he would have to deal with over the agonizing 16 month shoot, one that sent him through the Philippine jungle and back and gave him a heart attack along the way, he would have never agreed to it. Today, he has no regrets, because I would imagine that not he, nor any critic on Earth, would think about Sheen having a heart attack while watching this masterpiece of cinema.

Francis Ford Coppola’s film is easily the best of the Vietnam War movies, and in my book one of the best of all time. To watch “Apocalypse Now” is to become immersed and dragged deeper into the horror that is war all while remaining distant, confused and utterly hopeless at the idea of ever fully understanding violence. Continue reading “Apocalypse Now (1979)”