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.

Definitive Rundown

My top 10, in descending order.




















10. Peeping Tom (1960)
This is probably one of the greatest horror-thrillers ever made, although it was banned and ruined director Michael Powell's career. Powell had been previously known as one half of the Powell and Pressburger partnership that in the 40's made classic films like Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death, The Red Shoes and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Although these are some of the greatest and most beautifully photographed (by Jack Cardiff) films to come out of Britain ever, they are basically melodramas. Peeping Tom was a huge departure of subject matter. The film is about a young man, Mark Lewis, who kills women with his camera tripod and films them dying. He suffers from a disorder that means he is compelled to stare at people through windows and whenever he generally feels they can't see him. I think it's one of the cleverest scripts Michael Powell ever worked with, and the film is also visually groundbreaking. It's influence on latter giallo films by Bava and Argento is quite apparent. Carl Boehm's performance as Mark is also incredible.


































9. 8 1/2 (1963)
Federico Fellini's iconic, self referencing masterpiece (including his segment of Boccaccio 70, this was Fellini's 8th and a half film), 8 1/2  is a portrait of a disenchanted film director (played by Marcello Mastroianni) and the characters who fill his life and imagination: his girlfriend, wife, writers, producers, their girlfriends, some other people who he meets and the various characters remembered from his childhood. The film's reality is constantly undermined by his fantasies, dreams and embellished memories, without you ever knowing where you are exactly. A beautiful mess. 8 1/2 is a shamelessly indulgent depiction of the Italian male psyche.


































8. The Producers (1968)

With films like Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles, writer director Mel Brooks has been responsible for some of the most groundbreaking comedy films of the 60s and 70s. His original 1968 version of The Producers is arguably one of the greatest of these. A has-been theatre producer, Max Bialistock (played by Zero Mostel), and his accountant Leo Bloom (played by Gene Wilder) decide to produce 'the worst play ever', a light musical comedy called Springtime For Hitler. They hope that it will close after one night and thereby leave them with most of the funding, which would greatly exceed the actual budget of the play. The fact they are both Jewish offcourse lends an extra depth to what is probably the definitive comedy of the 20th century.  Gene Wilder is great in his starring debut and Zero Mostel is absolutely astounding.









































7. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

This was adapted from a book by Erich Maria Remarque about his experiences as a German soldier in the First World War. The film, directed by Lewis Milestone, is probably one of the most groundbreaking for its time. It won Best Picture at the third ever Academy Awards, and its not hard to see why. The camera work is more dynamic than most films made now, and it features some of the greatest battle sequences ever, along side intimate, naturalistic dialogue scenes. A recurring visual motif seems to be of the characters sitting in the foreground with a large window or doorway in the background showing the different environments and stages of the war. It's a film that perfectly expresses its message, verbally and visually.













































6. The Silence (1963)

The story of Ingmar Bergman's The Silence concerns three relatives who are travelling through Europe: Ester, who is busy translating a book into Swedish, her younger sister Anna and Anna's son Johan, who are accompanying Ester on what seems to be a work related trip. The three arrive in an unspecified European country that appears to be at war and who's language they don't understand, staying in a hotel sweet of two adjoining rooms. Johan is inquisitive and explores much of the hotel in the earlier part of the film. These early scenes rely on visual narratives and are short, seemingly unrelated and almost completely without dialogue. This is the most cinematic Bergman gets (until 1966's Persona), the result is beautiful and hypnotic. It is only towards the middle and end of the film that the dialogue starts to take hold and the film returns to more familiar Bergman territory. The sisters are portrayed in more depth and their strange relationship is exposed. Anna is often rather suggestively shown with wet or moist skin, denoting her apparent health and vitality. She is voracious and sensual. Ester, by contrast, is the intellectual, seeming to live solely on alcohol and cigarette's. At the end of the film Ester appears to be terminally ill. The films three main characters can be seen to be based on the stages of man (youth, adulthood and old age), and the hotel and foreign country they find themselves in an allegory for humanity's unexplained and seemingly pointless existence in the universe. However, as with other Bergman classic's like Through a Glass Darkly, Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal, The Silence also works excellently as a simple, play-like narrative.












































5. Hard Boiled (1992)

John Woo is the greatest action director of all time and Hard Boiled is the ultimate John Woo movie. All his early Hong Kong films: Bullet in the Head, The Killer, A Better Tomorrow, etc. feature these incredible set piece action sequences along side emotionally involving characters and fairly complexed sub-plots. A bit like Die Hard meets The Godfather. I think Hard Boiled is the best example of this. The story is basically a cop drama about a stereotypically hot-headed yet sensitive jazz loving detective, played by Chow Yun Fat, and his relationship to a slick mafia hit man who is actually an undercover cop, played by Tony Lueng Chui-Wai. It features a frankly excessive amount of action scenes and gobsmacking set-pieces, which along with what infact ends up being a rather moving story of friendship, elevates the film above anything done before or since. Hard Boiled is quite simply the zenith of action cinema, it has never been surpassed.












































4. Night of the Living Dead (1968)/ Dawn of the Dead (1978)/ Day of the Dead (1985)
I tend to think of George Romero's iconic zombie trilogy as a single work. Although all three films have a different setting and characters, they seem to exist in context to each other, all being a continuation of the same story: that of the end of human civilisation after the dead start to apparently rise from the grave and eat the living. Romero re-invented the zombie film in 1968 with his original take on the sub-genre: Night of the Living Dead. It's a perfect horror b-movie, with 50's stock music and atmospheric black and white photography. Romero's trademark sense of editing and pace are already apparent here. As with it's two follow ups, the dialogue is gritty and real. In Dawn of the Dead the violence is in Technicolor. People with grey/green faces bite into fleshy make up sacks filled with bright red paint. The film is garish and entertaining, like a comic book. The final act, Day of the Dead, is simultaneously the goriest and most cerebral of the three, with even more dialogue, and Tom Savini's groundbreaking special effects. These three films are undoubtedly Romero's best, and perhaps the greatest concept movies ever made.

















































3. Persona (1966)

Ingmar Bergman's Persona is probably the most beautiful film I've ever seen. It's also in some way about film itself. The abstract opening sequence is unsettling, it reminds you of the fact that you are watching a film, it reminds you of death, you are placed in a defensive state of mind. The films reality can no longer be taken for granted. From the outset of the story then, the characters seem to be like apparitions. Symbolic. The narrative seems fragile and dreamlike. Nurse Alma (excellently played by Bibi Anderson), is charged with the care of a mental patient, an actress called Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann), who has inexplicably stopped talking. Alma's boss, a female Doctor, send's them to stay at her holiday home by the sea. Here, Alma engages in long monologues while Elisabet listens. The patient has a sinister, haunting presence and the nurse's honesty makes her seem vulnerable. The two characters are like hot and cold. One of the most telling moments of the film is when Elisabet apparently speaks. She tells Alma to go to bed after the nurse nearly falls asleep at a table. Infact, Elisabet is never shown to visibly speak, but her voice is heard as a whisper, as if possibly imagined by Alma. Looking at the characters of Persona allegorically, as with The Silence, this time they seem to represent facets of the same mind. Elisabet, the actress, seeming to represent a kind of creative sub-conscious, and Alma (who's name is the Spanish word for soul) representing the heavily constructed conscious mind, full of what are apparently frivolous concerns and observations. As a simple narrative its filled with beautiful images, and Bergman himself regarded it as one of his most cinematic and important films.

















































2. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

This film is just stunning. Masterfully directed by David Lean, it seems to have an entirely different feel to his previous films, classics like Bridge on the River Kwai and Brief Encounter, and was never surpassed by his later, slightly less enthralling epic Doctor Zhivago. The new wave inspired editing of Lawrence of Arabia are one of the more obvious influences on directors like Steven Spielberg, the scene transitions seem to relate to each other. The dialogue is simply astonishing, from a screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson that is probably one of the greatest ever written, and based on the real T. E Lawrence's own written accounts. Peter O' Toole's performance in the role of Colonel Lawrence is also wonderful, and probably a landmark in his career. The desert is used to great effect in the cinematography by Freddie Young, along side one of the most iconic cinematic scores ever by Maurice Jarre. Lawrence of Arabia is simply so watchable, it doesnt feel as long as it is (which is about three and a half hours), something of a rarity in epic cinema. Undoubtedly, it is the greatest of the Hollywood epics of the 50's and 60s.

















































1. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)

Sergio Leone's masterful example of film-making in its purest form, The Good The Bad and The Ugly is arguably the greatest film of all time. There is something mystical, un-explainable about why this is, but nevertheless I will try to convey some sort of rationality as to why this is my favourite film. The first ten minutes or so are completely whithout dialogue. The characters move through entire scenes silently, to the point where their actions are almost abstracted. When they do finally speak we learn of a plot involving some stolen confederate gold (the story takes place during the American Civil War), apparently buried in the grave of a soldier. A mysterious oportunist known as "Blondie" (played by Clint Eastwood) knows the name on the grave, and a greedy and generally base outlaw, Tuco (Eli Wallach) knows which graveyard. As old acquaintances, they must temporarily bury the hatchet and work together to uncover the lost loot. On their trail is a man Tuco calls "Angel Eyes" (Lee Van Cleef), a sadistic and self serving bounty hunter and army captain. Although the film is offcourse a spaghetti western, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly's sprawling scale and American Civil War context give it the feeling of a true epic.
Throughout the film, Tuco is confronted with ethical decisions. His choices seem to guide the story along. Tuco can be seen allegorically as an everyman, with Blondie and Angel Eyes as incarnations of his own good and bad instincts. In this context, the story is seemingly elevated to a timeless parable. It is almost Biblical. Leone's 'Dollars Trilogy', the trio of iconic westerns starring Clint Eastwood of which The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is the final part, brought the Italian style western into the mainstream and inspired a surge of similar movies, all shot in southern Spain, and usually with funding from Italian or German production companies. These would become known in America as "spaghetti westerns". Spaghetti westerns, as apposed to the traditional kind, featured the violence and high drama of Italian opera, along with a knowing modernity, often influenced by the social and cultural climate of the 60's. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is no exception to this rule, having a distinctly anti-war message at around the time America was gearing up to invade Vietnam. A movie that has yet to be surpassed in terms of visual and sonic aesthetics, and perhaps one of the greatest artefacts of the 20th century.

Spaghetti-Westerns, Franco Nero, Antichrist, The Room

Kill Them All and Come Back Alone. It's the name of a film. I want to try and make this blog just about films, we'll see. Here is the trailer to prove I'm not lying:



This film was directed by Enzo G. Castellari who made Inglorious Bastards and the truly amazing spaghetti western film: Keoma. I'd say Keoma is probably the greatest italo-western I've ever seen so check it out if you can. I would describe it as A Fistfull of Dollars meets The Bible meets Mad Max.

Franco Nero is also famous for being the original Django in the iconic italo-western of the same name. If you were wondering what Jimmy Cliff is watching in the cinema sequence of The Harder They Come, well: it's Django. The film was made around the same time as FistfullofDollars but is a bit more violent and surreal. Apparently it set a trend in spaghetti westerns for featuring a machine gun and a coffin or box filled with gold as a major element of the plot. These became re-ocuring motifs in most italo-westerns including the hundreds of Django sequels. It was directed by Sergio Corbucci, who I gather was a close friend of Sergio Leone (who made Fistfull.. etc), and I'd say his films are made with a similar style. Corbucci also made a film called Navajo Joe starring Burt Reynolds which I haven't seen, and The Mercenary also starring Franco Nero. Needless to say Nero was pretty huge in europe in the seventies and eighties. I guess no one really knows who he is in Britain and North America.


By the way most of these 'facts' are off the top of my head and probably wrong.

Another incredible italo/spaghetti western that I've recently discovered is Django Kill a.k.a. If You Live, Shoot. I think it was marketed as a Django 'sequel' in the hope of making more money, but it has nothing to do with the former film. I'd say it's even more violent and disturbing than its namesake and infinately more entertaining/funny. The plot revolves around an unnamed "half breed" played by the amazing Tomas Milian, who seeks revenge on the outlaw gang that betrayed him and left him for dead. After he is revived by two indians (played by two clearly italian character actors) they give him some golden bullets and tell him they will help him take his revenge if he leads them to "happy hunting ground". They track his former accomplace's to a town the indians call The Unhappy Place, and from there the rather complexed and violent story unfolds, featuring another gang of basically gay mexican outlaws called Los Muchachos. This film is totally hilarious and beautifully directed (although the guys name escapes me), and you can buy it in HMV.


My other favourite spaghetti western is Blind Man featuring Ringo Starr. The Italian trailer has been on my facebook page for ages. Here is an American version:



I can't wait to watch Antichrist even though it's directed by Lars von Trier who made such unwatchable dross as The Idiots and the even worse by far Dogville starring Nicole Kidman who is the worst actress in the world probably. Antichrist actually looks really good though! Apparently it features a talking fox and Charlotte Gainsbourg castrating herself, nice. I guess you've probably seen the trailer but here it is anyway:


I also kind of want to watch The Room.