Even More of The Greatest part 4

More of my favourite films in no particular order.

















90. Beau Travail (1999) Claire Denis' semi abstract, homo-erotic masterpiece, Beau Travail depicts life in a French Foreign Legion garrison in north Africa. Denis Lavant plays Sgt. Galloup, a career soldier in charge of a number of young men, recruits from various parts of the globe. When a charismatic and handsome soldier called Sentain arrives, Galloup feels envious of his popularity with the other men and begins to resent him for his apparent bravery and strength of character. In the end Galloup's jealousy and obsession with Sentain leads to his court martial and the end of his career in the legion. The ambiguous ending seems to suggest Galloup's suicide. The simple story, loosely inspired by Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd, is told with little dialogue, the emphasis is on abstracted images and sounds, edited together rythmically. The effect is hypnotic. Denis' direction also emphasises the homo-erotic context, and seems to suggest another reason for Galloup's fixation.


























89. Bad Boy Bubby (1993)
I remember seeing the trailer of Bad Boy Bubby when I was around 13 (when it came out) and being completely gobsmacked. It didnt look like anything else. It has nearly everything a teenage boy would want in a film: a retrobate anti-hero performing various acts of social suicide/destruction. Doing all the things you wish at the time that you could. You've never been drunk enough yet to surpass them, you've never felt that morning after regret. In a sense, coming of age is what Bad Boy Bubby is about. Rolf de Heer's film, about a man called Bubby (played by Nicholas Hope) who is trapped from birth in a small apartment by his deranged mother until he one day escapes and runs amok, was made in an experimental way, using tiny microphones under Hope's wig in order to record 'Bubby's experience', and also using 31 different directors of photography. In order to tell Bubby's story it would have to look and sound completely new. The childlike Bubby's adventures are episodic. He joins a band, discovers pizza, and is frequently taken in by sympathetic onlookers who try to mold him into various guises of middle class acceptabilty, or just themselves, it doesn't work. He is, offcourse, irrepressible. A dirty mirror to hold up to ourselves, he lets us see what we are. Bad Boy Bubby remains one of the most original and, in the end, absurdly touching films of the 90s.

88. Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947)

Another great example of Yasujiro Ozu's subtly moving and rather beautiful drama films (see Tokyo Story at #56), Record of a Tenement Gentleman is a darkly comic, but no less poignant snap shot of post war Japan. The story concerns the residents of a Tokyo slum that has been damaged during the bombing raids of the 1940's. All the characters are destitutes. Tashiro (played by Ozu regular Chisu Ryu) makes a living in the street telling peoples fortunes. One day he meets a young boy who has apparently been abandoned by his father. Taking him back to his tenement, he tries to persuade his neighbour, Tamekichi, a pots and pans seller, to take the boy temporarily until they can locate his dad. Tamekichi refuses and tells Tashiro to try another neighbour of theirs, a widow named O-tane. Although she is reluctant, O-tane eventually agrees to let the boy stay one night. Told with Ozu's trademark distinctive visual style, using establishing shots to punctuate scenes, this 'beauty of the every day' is what sets Ozu's films apart, and seems somehow very Japanese. The film has a certain pace which keeps us detached from the characters. No melodrama, nothing is confronted quite head on. As with other masters like Bergman or Tarkovsky, in Ozu's best work (of which Tenement Gentlemen is certainly one) one can feel the presence of genius from the outset. These are the films that are the easiest to sit through because, like all great art, they elevate you. It is cinema at its most life enhancing.


























87. Jean de Florette/ Manon des Sources (1986)

Claude Berri's classical two movie adaptation of the novel by Marcel Pagnol, the films were shot in succession and tell the story of two perversely immoral 'salt of the earth' farmers in early 1920's Provence, and their attempts to cheat a naive Parisian out of his inherited land. Ugolin (played by Daniel Auteuil), a dim witted war veteran, returns from World War 1 to his small home town and his elderly uncle Cesar (Yves Montand). Eventually Ugolin reveals to his uncle that, instead of a typical crop, he wishes to grow carnations. At first Cesar is sceptical, but agrees to help his nephew when he realises how much money can be made. They approach a local farmer to see about possibly buying his land, as the scheming Cesar knows of a spring, one that he buried years earlier, that will make this land more fertile. The farmer, who is ignorant of the springs existence, nevertheless refuses and during an altercation with the two prospective buyers he is accidentally killed. After making it appear as if the farmer simply fell from a tree, Ugolin and Cesar scuttle away to bide their time. They learn that the farmers only living heir is a Parisian tax collector named Jean (Gerard Depardieu). Since, as they learn, Jean is a hunchback, it seems unlikely he will want to keep the farm, nevertheless Cesar resorts to breaking the roof tiles in order to attempt to make it as unappealing as possible. Unfortunately for both Cesar and his nephew, Jean has every intention of keeping the land as he intends to breed rabbits. He also wants to bring up his young daughter in the countryside, which he has somewhat idealised. So begins a darkly humourous and ultimately tragic saga. Jean de Florette heralded a fashion for nostalgic period films that would become the norm in French cinema until the release of La Haine in 1995. Berri's adaptation is classicaly and impeccably directed.

86. JFK (1991)

Oliver Stone's epic re-telling of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, JFK is essentially an engrossing mystery thriller, but with a disturbingly real context. Stone's only real claim in the end is that the assassination was a conspiracy orchestrated from somewhere within the American government itself, a prospect which may have seemed far fetched at the time the film was made, but which in a contemporary context is beginning to look more and more believable. The sheer amount of information delivered through this film, some of which is fairly chilling, also give it the feel of a some sort of historical document. In this sense it has something in common with Goodfellas, the film Martin Scorsesse made only a year earlier about life in the mob. Both films seem to stem from some prevailing trend in the early 90s towards the informative. Something which told us how it really was. Stone wrote the screenplay of JFK based on two books: On the Trail of The Assassins by Jim Garrison (who Kevin Costner plays in the film) and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs. Stone also met with L. Fletcher Prouty, a former Chief of Special Operations under Kennedy who became a public critic of United States foreign policy, and particularly of the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency. Stone said meeting Prouty was one of the most extraordinary afternoons of his life and it was one of the inspirations of the scene in which the character of Garrison meets a former Pentagon Colonel called 'Mr X'. In the film this character explains to Garrison many things which seem to put the theory of a government conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt, it is one of the great payoffs in Hollywood history and something of a verbal climax to a film which is infact structured as much like an old fashioned whoddunit as a documentary. JFK is perhaps the perfect amalgamation of the two.


























85. The Ipcress File (1965)

Surely one of the greatest British films ever made. Sidney J. Furie's adaptation of Len Deighton's spy novel The Ipcress File is also one of the most inventively directed films of the 60's. The camera is frequently watching the scene from some unexpected angle, from behind a phone box or even from inside a lamp shade, the characters in the story are 'under surveilance' from the audience. Michael Caine plays Harry Palmer, a low level intelligence agent working for the Ministry of Defence in London. In contrast to a character like James Bond, Palmer is an insubordinate cockney who enjoys classical music and cooking. He has been recruited to the Ministry from a military prison in which he was incarcerated. All the Palmer films (see also Funeral in Berlin and The Billion Dollar Brain) begin with Palmer reporting to, or being seeked out by, his boss Colonel Ross. To contrast Palmer, Ross is an archetypal English gentleman, one of those elite 'old boy's' that once seemed to exist in Britain, and perhaps still do in some form. He attends a club, wears bowler hats and always has an umbrella. Ross' contempt for Palmer's unusual sense of humour and general insubordinate manner is offcourse comical, but these scenes are where Palmer's character burns the brightest. He appears to wear a mask of smirking indifference, and remains incredibly enigmatic. Although Palmer is sometimes forced to act amorally, he seems to ultimately mean well, and exudes a kind of understated heroism.
When a famous scientist called Dr Radcliffe is abducted, Palmer is re-allocated from his usual surveillance duties to the clandestine government department that was responsible for Radcliffe's security escort: an agent who was killed during the abduction. Palmer's journey is a cerebral one, there is a mystery to unravel. No action set-pieces, no exotic destinations (in this film atleast), just cold violence and a lot of paperwork.


























84. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

In this classic John Ford western, John Wayne plays Capt. Nathan Brittles, an ageing officer of a small and remote U.S. cavalry outpost. The story unfolds over the course of his last week of active duty before his retirement. It is in the immediate aftermath of General Custer's defeat and a group of young Native Americans are seemingly running amok and threatening to attack the fort, which also houses a small number of women. The subject matter is similar to Ford's later and more well known western The Searchers, in which Wayne also appears in his usual macho persona, but this film seems altogether less pompous. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is far less epic in scale and the story is relatively simple, more down to earth somehow. Thankfully, its depiction of Native Americans is also slightly less controversial. For a start the Native Americans in this film are played by actual Native Americans, instead of the conspicuously blue eyed and pink skinned character actors of The Searchers (and in fact so many other westerns). While there still remains a rather embarrassing lack of the Native point of view (Custer's defeat and slaughter was arguably justified), nevertheless the film does seem to at least attempt to show the Native population as a complexed society. Throughout the film Brittles remains on good terms with the elders of the tribes, who are represented in one scene by the character of Chief Pony That Walks (memorably played by Chief John Big Tree). Though its a film most definitely of its time in many ways, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is nevertheless a complexed and beautifully shot western from a director who is after all one of the key figures in the genre, and indeed in American movies.


























83. Unforgiven (1992) From classical westerns to the modern kind, of which Unforgiven is possibly the greatest example, this is essentially a film in which the real MYTHOS of the old west is celebrated. The story telling and word of mouth culture of the time is explored here more than anywhere else. The whole film is essentially a series of anecdotal monologues and dialogue scenes which are convincingly authentic. There is comparatively little action, as it should be in any self respecting American western, the majority of the film is a slow build to some terrible climax you know is coming. Clint Eastwood plays William Munny, an ageing ex-outlaw gunman turned farmer who is persuaded to return to his former life for one last job. A group of prostitutes, led by 'Strawberry Alice' (played by Frances Fisher), have raised 1,000 dollars for a bounty on a couple of cowboys who attacked and disfigured their colleague Delilah (Anna Thompson). Promptly, a young wannabe gunfighter, 'The Schofield Kid' (Jaimz Woolvett), arrives at Munny's farmstead to convince him to help track down the two men and share the reward. Munny refuses but is eventually convinced it is the right thing to do after hearing a rather exaggerated account of their crime from Schofield. Munny then convinces his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) to help them by recounting an even more exaggerated version of the incident, and the three men set off. Meanwhile, another reformed gunfighter, 'Little Bill' Daggett (Gene Hackman) is now the over zealous sheriff of Big Whiskey, the town where the pivotal event took place. Daggett was originally lenient on the two cowboys, and enforces a 'no gun' policy as a peacekeeping effort, but also to ensure he has absolute power over everyone in the township. He is soon shown to be a narcissistic bully. Eventually Munny and his compadre's track down and kill the two cowboys and claim the reward, but after Logan leaves Munny and Schofield to return home, Daggett captures him and has him tortured to death. This incurs the wrath of Munny and awakens a dark side that has long been dormant. Clint Eastwood's 16th feature film as director is a powerhouse of American storytelling, and proof that in 1992 Hollywood could still do 'dark' when it had to.


























82. The Shining (1980)
Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece is light on gory violence and heavy on atmosphere and suspense. It's a story (adapted from Stephen King) that merely presents the audience with a situation, a man alone with his family in a remote mountain hotel, and then lets this situation fester and evolve into a nightmare. Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) is a frustrated writer who decides to become the winter caretaker of The Overlook Hotel, a mountain resort that is closed to the public once a year dew to extreme weather conditions. He takes his wife and young son with him to live there while he plans to use the peace and quiet to write his book. His son, Danny (Danny Lloyd) seems to have some psychic ability which manifests itself through an imaginary friend called 'Tony'. Before arriving Danny tells his mother, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), that Tony doesn't want to go to the hotel. After they arrive Danny starts to suffer from terrifying hallucinations. Meanwhile, inspiration seems to elude Jack and he slowly goes insane, eventually adopting the persona of a previous caretaker who apparently killed his family and then himself years before. Nowhere has an atmosphere of disquieting menace been so completely achieved as in The Shining, arguably Stanley Kubrick's greatest film, and in my opinion, the greatest horror film of all time.



























81. Once Upon a Time in America (1984) Sergio Leone's sprawling gangster epic, based on the semi-autobiographical book The Hoods by Harry Grey, tells the story of the rise and fall of a group of childhood friends. The film follows them from their childhoods as impoverished Jewish immigrants in early 20s New York, to success in the criminal underworld of the prohibition era, and finally to a mysterious reunion many years later. It encompasses a transitional period of the 20th century, rarely has the past juxtaposed with the present so much as when Robert De Niro's character, 'Noodles', looks back from the 70s to the early 20s. This is how the story begins. The film is completely and utterly about nostalgia. Noodles, played as a kid by Scott Tiler, remembers Deborah (Jennifer Connelly and Elizabeth McGovern), the precocious sister of his friend Fat Moe (Mike Monetti/ Larry Rapp). He watches her practicing ballet through a peephole, this image is our doorway back, as if it is his earliest important memory. The romantic, childish love they feel for each other will provide the emotional core of the movie. Soon Noodles meets Max (Rusty Jacobs/ James Woods) and they become life long friends and business partners, until eventually falling out. Noodles disappears after Max and the rest of his circle are killed in a fire. Then 40 years later Noodles receives a mysterious letter. Leone's original version of the film was about 4 and a half hours long, but he edited it down himself to about 3 and a half, and this became the version that is now most commonly seen. On its American release however, and against Leone's wishes, the studio cut it down to about 2 and a half hours and re-edited it so that the story unfolded completely chronologically. Consequently, this version received poor reviews and Leone was apparently heartbroken. He never made another film, but for most people the European cut of Once Upon a Time in America is a true masterpiece, and a fitting swansong to a director who in his brief career had such a unique impact on cinema.