red desert

Red Desert
d. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964

Red Desert is Michelangelo Antonioni's intoxicating color feature that's not really about anything. It stars Monica Vitti as more or less a similar character to the ones she played in Antonioni's previous works L'Avventura and L'Eclisse, but here she's got a somewhat less subtle existential crisis. She'd been in a car accident and never really psychologically recovered from it, and the movie follows her through a series of situations of growing discontent. The beautiful color photography (certainly one of the most expressive use of Technicolor ever) evokes a palpable sense of discomfort, and it carries the movie a long way. At its simplest, Red Desert is a brilliantly fascinating portrayal of a disturbed woman. Not that it really matters, however, as Antonioni's intricate mise en scene and Monica Vitti are so charming.

singin' in the rain

Singin' in the Rain
d. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952

Singin' in the Rain is easily the most famous movie musical of all time, I personally prefer something like Jacques Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort or Roubert Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight, but I would not hesitate to call this film a masterpiece. Singin' in the Rain is the kind of movie that eludes criticism, it so effortlessly and brilliantly succeeds as a fun musical that it seems pointless to call it what it is, "perfect." When the AFI published its outrageous list of the 100 greatest American films (no The Night of the Hunter or In a Lonely Place but Forrest Gump makes the cut), Singin' in the Rain placed 10th and it was one of the few films on the list that actually deserved a spot. The film is a life-affirming celebration of movies as well as a comic portrayal of the transition period between silent and sound film that occurred in the late 1920s. Singin' in the Rain contains what is perhaps the most famous scene in film: Gene Kelly singing in the rain. Everything else in the film is just as great, and almost 55 years after the film was made, I think it's safe to say that it will never date.

gentlemen prefer blondes

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
d. Howard Hawks, 1953

One of Howard Hawks' greatest films may also be Marilyn Monroe's best movie, 1953's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Though not one of Hawks' best known works (that title would go to Bringing Up Baby or The Big Sleep), it's certainly one that has worked its way into the American consciousness. Whether it be through Madonna's "Material Girl" video, which pays tribute to a scene in the film, or because it features Monroe in her quintessential role as gold-digging lounge singer, the film is certainly one of the key films of the 1950s. Shot in glorious Technicolor by Harry J. Wild, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is probably the best example of Hollywood glamour in the 50s, and the musicals number here are never less than amazing. Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe play two young women on their way to Paris, where Monroe plans to marry a rich man played by Tommy Noonan. His father, however, disapproves of his choice and hires a detective to spy on her while on the cruise. The detective falls in love with Jane Russell and other stuff happens. That Gentlemen Prefer Blondes manages to be an enormous entertainment (I would place it above Singin' in the Rain) is certainly an achievement, but that it also manages to satirize and portray the American capitalist mindset is why it'll be remembered.

citizen kane

Citizen Kane
d. Orson Welles, 1941

Orson Welles' Citizen Kane has had more written about it than virtually every other film in history, so it's kind of difficult to try to approach it in a new manner. This is my second viewing of the film, as I first came to it more than a year ago, and it was my first Welles movie. I now have to say that I personally prefer his F for Fake (1976) and I am dying to see The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) again. However, Citizen Kane is arguably the most important and accomplished of his films. For someone who discovered it more than 70 years after its original release, the film stands as one of the perfect examples of Hollywood cinema. For the most part, Citizen Kane is flawless filmmaking, both as a technical achievement and a narrative one. Welles - who co-wrote, directed, produced, and starred in this film - paints the story of tycoon Charles Foster Kane in a staggering collection of vivd scenes that have become landmarks of film history. Everything from the opening "News On the March" recounting the life of Mr. Kane to Welles' incredible use of deep focus photography. In the end, Citizen Kane, by forming a life out of a collection of memories told in flashback, becomes a sad tale about the way we all lead our lives. Needless to say, the film should be seen by everyone.

night and fog

Night and Fog
d. Alain Resnais, 1955

As far as movies about the Holocaust go, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List and Claude Lanzmann's Shoah are perhaps the two most famous ones. I never really cared for the former and have not found the opportunity to approach the 9 1/2 hour Shoah (though I do plan to.) With that said, I think I can safely say that Alain Renais' Night and Fog holds a very important place amongst movies of the subject. Made only 10 years after the war ended, Resnais' film is perhaps the first cinematic account of what went on in concentration camps. The film plays out like a visual essay, and it's influence can be seen in the films of Chris Marker (an assistant director on this film.) It'd be pointless to talk about the images in Night and Fog, as they are not the type of things to be communicated verbally, as the deft narration often points out. Without a doubt, this is essential viewing.

double indemnity

Double Indemnity
d. Billy Wilder, 1944

Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity is the definitive film noir, period. Sure, Fritz Lang laid the foundation with M (1931) and its shadowy compositions and high angles, and Orson Welles provided what is considered the last of the classical noirs with Touch of Evil (1958), but it's this Wilder masterpiece that stands above all others. First, Wilder used black-and-white photography as expressively as anyone else before him or since (Lang and Welles included), and John Seitz's impeccable cinematography in Double Indemnity is the perfect example of this. Second, Wilder's direction is as seductive as anything's that ever been filmed, but above all it's his writing that (justifiably) gets a lot of credit. In Double Indemnity, he collaborated with novelist Raymond Chandler - whose novels inspired Hawks' The Big Sleep and Altman's The Long Goodbye - on the screenplay, and I challenge anyone to find more perfect dialogue than is on showcase here. Lines like "How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?" and "I killed him for the money and for the woman. I didn't get the money... and I didn't get the woman." summarize the mood of Double Indemnity, and most of Wilder's work for that matter. And I haven't even talked about the story yet, as if it really mattered. Well, it's about insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) plotting to rub off Phyllis' husband for his insurance money. As the viewer gathers in the first scene, everything went wrong, and the film recounts the fascinating relationship between Walter and Barbara. MacMurray and Stanwyck are at their finest here, and they make up one of the most captivating couples in film. Right up there with Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard's Breathless. And that's saying a lot.

the young girls of rochefort

The Young Girls of Rochefort
d. Jacques Demy, 1967

Jacques Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort would be my own choice for the most enjoyable of all movie musicals. Demy's film is so formally astonishing it surpasses even the best Hollywood musicals from which it gains its inspiration; don't get me wrong, I love Singin' in the Rain and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as much as the next guy, but there's something about what Demy and Michel Legrand - who wrote and conducted the music - do here that I've seen nowhere else. The Young Girls of Rochefort even manages to be more than an exceptional musical; it tells a universal story about missed and fulfilled opportunities. Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum compares it to Playtime in its portrayal of these connections, and it's easy to spot elements of Jacques Tati through Demy's film. The cast - which includes real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Dorleac as the young girls and Gene Kelly as an American musician - is all around amazing, and the choreography is as creative as any ever put on screen. Cinematographer Ghislain Cloquet (who also shot Bresson's Au hasard Balthazar) takes full advantage of the town of Rochefort, with the action being mostly centered around the town square. The Young Girls of Rochefort takes place over the span of a weekend, culminating in a fair on Sunday; the rest of the film is filled with characters trying to find the person that makes them happy, and through a series of occurrences eventually come to find them. In his review of the film, Rosenbaum also points out that though the film ends in a happy mood (everyone meets the person they need), what sticks with the viewer is the sense of dissolution (the path they had to go through to reach the person), as there are many sad moments throughout the film. Rarely has the screen been a place filled with such loveliness.