List Update!


1. Singin' in the Rain (10)
2. Children of Paradise (24)
3. The Gold Rush (37)
4. Pather Panchali (42)
5. Intolerance (44)
6. The Wild Bunch (55)
7. La Strada (59)
8. Fanny and Alexander (62)
9. North By Northwest (63)
10. Greed (64)
11. Rio Bravo (67)
12. The Earrings of Madame de... (68)
13. Sherlock Jr. (69)
14. Voyage in Italy (75)
15. On the Waterfront (80)
16. Pierrot Le Fou (81)
17. The Leopard (85)
18. Gone with the Wind (88)
19. Sansho the Bailiff (89)
20. Last Year at Marienbad (91)
21. The Decalogue (94)
22. Letter from an Unknown Woman (95)
23. Gertrud (101)
24. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (102)
25. Chimes at Midnight (105)
26. Earth (110)
27. Napoleon (116)
28. Shoah (117)
29. Ashes and Diamonds (121)
30. Umberto D (122)
31. Black Narcissus (123)
32. Broken Blossoms (126)
33. Red River (127)
34. Ivan the Terrible (128)
35. The Grapes of Wrath (134)
36. Brief Encounter (137)
37. The Gospel According to St. Matthew (138)
38. The Exterminating Angel (139)
39. The Red Shoes (140)
40. Paisan (141)
41. The Sweet Smell of Success (142)
42. Rome, Open City (143)
43. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (145)
44. Kind Hearts and Coronets (146)
45. La Notte (153)
46. Two or Three Things I Know About Her (154)
47. Out of the Past (155)
48. Close-Up (157)
49. The Maltese Falcon (158)
50. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (160)
51. The World of Apu (164)
52. Paths of Glory (166)
53. Once Upon a Time in America (167)
54. The Philadelphia Story (168)
55. Meet Me in St. Louis (170)
56. Jalsaghar (171)
57. Monsieur Verdoux (172)
58. The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (173)
59. Performance (177)
60. The Traveling Players (179)
61. The Conversation (180)
62. A Matter of Life and Death (181)
63. The Crowd (185)
64. Vampyr (186)
65. Alexander Nevsky (190)
66. The Wages of Fear (191)
67. The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp (192)
68. The Exorcist (194)
69. A Star is Born (195)
70. Schindler's List (202)
71. Crimes and Misdemeanors (203)
72. Rocco and His Brothers (204)
73. The Crime of Monsieur Lange (205)
74. The Shop Around the Corner (208)
75. The Band Wagon (210)
76. Wings of Desire (214)
77. A Day in the Country (216)
78. Written on the Wind (217)
79. Mouchette (218)
80. Throne of Blood (219)
81. Berlin Alexanderplatz (220)
82. Germany, Year Zero (224)
83. Death in Venice (226)
84. The Life of Oharu (228)
85. Unforgiven (230)
86. The Tree of Wooden Clogs (232)
87. Les Vampires (233)
88. The Navigator (234)
89. The Awful Truth (236)
90. Strike (240)
91. Ninotchka (243)
92. Strangers on a Train (246)
93. Salo (248)
94. The Passenger (250)
95. Kings of the Road (251)
96. Shane (252)
97. The Time to Live and the Time to Die (254)
98. Floating Clouds (256)
99. The Deer Hunter (257)
100. 1900 (258)

Bold is new to the top 100 since the hiatus

Dropped out of the top 100: Marnie

#85 - Zero for Conduct (1933, Jean Vigo)

We screened this one in the film class I took over the winter term. Somehow I alone decided on this film for the whole class. We were given the choice of three to watch (I don't remember the other two) but I let out an excited "ooh!" when this was brought up and in it went. The VHS we watched looked surprisingly sharp although this should be getting a Criterion DVD release at some point in 2007.

A major influence on 1960s new wave directors, not just in France but across the globe, elements of Zero for Conduct can be found in later films like The 400 Blows and If... I was especially surprised at how similar Vigo's and Lindsay Anderson's films were considering how much controversy the latter received upon its release in 1968 (and it still shocks today- I have a theory that Paramount has had a finished DVD waiting for years in limbo that keeps getting pushed back with each subsequent school shooting). Vigo's father was an anarchist jailed by the French government and this film is Vigo's tribute to him. Like If..., Zero for Conduct depicts an uprising by students at an oppressive boarding school. Vigo's film is much more humorous than Anderson's, inflused with a healthy dose of surrealism (the midget headmaster, the classroom doodle come to life). What I was shocked to find connects both films is the frank depictions of homosexuality among the pupils. If... contained an actual relationship between a senior and a younger boy, while Zero for Conduct has the adults fretting about the effeminate Tabard and a friend spending too much time together. The science teacher also has designs on Tabard and that is the catalyst for him, up to that point a very well-behaved child, join his peers' revolt.

Another aspect of the film that I liked and found ahead of its time was the character of Huguet. I always think of the "generation gap" as an invention of the baby boomers, but here is a twenty-something teacher much more in tune with his students than with the administration. Obviously, he is a stand-in for director Vigo, who was only 28 when the film was made. Sadly, he died of tuberculosis the following year just before the premiere of his phenomenal full-length feature L'Atalante, leaving behind a scant filmography establishing Vigo as the greatest "what-if" in cinema history.

#27 - Stalker (1979, Andrei Tarkovsky)

The film that killed Tarkovsky. Figuratively. After principal photography was finished, an error developing the film necessitated a reshoot. It was widely speculated that Soviet officials deliberately destroyed the film based on its spiritual themes. Either way, it was Tarkovsky's final film made in the U.S.S.R. His subsequent films Nostalghia and The Sacrifice were made in Italy and Sweden respectively.

The film that killed Tarkovsky. Literally. Stalker was filmed around an abandoned hydroelectric plant in Estonia downstream from a chemical plant that was polluting the Jagala River. The director, his wife, and actor Anatoly Solonitsyn all developed cancer in the years following, all succumbing to the disease.

The story of three men searching for a room in a forbidden zone where all wishes can be granted is a pretty clear religious allegory for a Soviet film. Like Mirror, it alternates between scenes of color and scenes filmed in sepia tone. This one's got even more long takes than most Tarkovskys. The several minute shot of the man's face (I forget whether it was Writer or Professor) as he rides in the back of a truck to the Zone while Eduard Artemyev's haunting electronic score plays on in is one of my favorite pointless long takes in cinema. Bela Tarr's entire career owes to that shot.

#26 - Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959, Alain Resnais)

Wow, it's been like six weeks since I saw this, it's weird that I'm just now writing about it. Well, for starters, this is now one of my favorite movies ever. Some of the best use of voiceover narration I've ever heard and wonderful explorations of personal memory and how it shapes one's perceptions of historical events. The juxtaposition of images of nuclear fallout and sex is unforgettable. God, this movie is the best. It's too bad so little Resnais is available on DVD, though Muriel is coming in March from Koch Lorber and Rialto is supposed to bring Last Year at Marienbad to theaters later this year, which makes a Criterion release inevitable in '07 or '08. I can't wait!

Ugh, been busy lately and almost forgot about this blog. My mothership They Shoot Pictures has updated their list so I'll have to update mine as well. I've actually only seen three movies from my old list since I last updated so here come those three reviews followed by the new top 100.