A Different Kind of Top 10 List

It is customary for movie critics to finish the year with a list of their 10 favorite movies of the past year. Seeing as I spend much more time watching classics than new releases (I haven't even seen 10 new movies this year), I figured I would present my own variation. These are the Top 10 movies that I saw for the first time in 2009.

I have always been obsessed with movies, but this past year was when my obsession came to fullest fruition. I went through Netflix discs rapid-fire; I went to the library to track down VHS copies of more obscure films; I taped films off of TCM; I got rides to the Brattle and Coolidge Corner Theaters. Unfortunately, I also slacked off when it came to blogging. I was moving through movies so quickly that I thought writing about them would slow me down! So here is an opportunity for me to talk about the movies that made the most impact on me this year - many of which I haven't yet written about.

Limiting this list to 10 proved a challenge, and as a result many great films were excluded. I decided to include a long list of honorable mentions, all of which are just as worthy as the top 10. Without much further ado:

10. Days of Heaven: Terrence Malick's 1978 film begins as Bill (Richard Gere), a Chicago steelworker, accidentally kills his supervisor and flees to the wheatfields of Texas with his girlfriend and sister. This fairly standard lovers-on-the-run plot suggests little of the film's beauty. The viewers sees the story from a distance, through the eyes of Linda, Bill's sister. Her voiceover narration is astonishing in its detail and insight. Ennio Morricone's score is alternately uplifting and haunting. But what remain most of all are the images. The cinematography, by Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler, captures the beauty and harshness of the natural world like no other film I have ever seen.

9. Woman in the Dunes: Hiroshi Teshigahara's bizarre masterpiece was an arthouse sensation in its day but is now largely forgotten. The script was written by Japanese writer Kobo Abe, from his novel about a bug collector who stays a night at a widow's shack, but is held against his will, forced to shovel out the sands that continually encroach her home. The film is above all an existential allegory, but it is not easily classifiable. It is a variation on the myth of Sisyphus, a psychological study, and a story of obsessive, erotic love. Despite its pretentious trappings, the powerful acting and unsettling mood (symbolized by the ever-sifting sand) make Woman in the Dunes a consistently fascinating film.

8. Grand Illusion: Jean Renoir, like his successor François Truffaut, is one of cinema's great humanists. This 1937 film, about a group of French POWs and their German captor, is a detailed and moving character study, as well as a reflection on the European class sysem. It never resorts to melodrama or easy moralizing. It effortlessly moves from romance to cynicism and back again, with grace and style.

7. The King of Comedy: Of all the collaborations between Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, The King of Comedy may be the least well known - and arguably the greatest. The film plays like a black comedy version of Taxi Driver. De Niro is Rupert Pupkin, an aspiring stand up comic who worships late night comedian Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis). When he fails to break through in the business, Pupkin decides to kidnap Langford in an attempt to get on the show. The film is undoubtedly funny, but it is also unsettling in its depiction of its delusional, celebrity-obsessed characters. The ending seems prophetic in the wake of today's reality TV landscape. It's also perhaps Scorsese's most experimental film; he toys with notions of reality and fantasy without telling us which is which.

6. Apocalypse Now: When I first saw Apocalypse Now, I loved it almost unreservedly, though I didn't really "get" the ending. Upon subsequent viewings, I think that may be less my fault and more Coppola's - the ending seems less assured and cohesive than the rest of the film. Still, Apocalypse Now is pretty stunning. The idea that war is hell is hardly original; but Coppola expresses it visually like no other war film I have seen. And he does not focus merely on the physical realities of battle, but also reveals the inner psyche of the soldier. Apocalypse Now is far superior to say, the contrived The Deer Hunter or the simplistic Saving Private Ryan.

5. The Apu Trilogy: Satyajit Ray has long been acknowledged by respected film critics everywhere as one of the greatest directors of all time. Yet he remains largely unknown, and most of his films are unavailable on DVD. I had to watch The Apu Trilogy, perhaps his most acclaimed work, on three scratchy VHS tapes from the library. The trilogy tells the story of Apu, who is born in a poor Indian village and progresses through life to become a scholar, a priest, and a wanderer. Ray was inspired by the Italian neorealist movement (e.g. The Bicycle Thief), which used nonprofessional actors and real locations to depict the everyday realities of working class people. But The Apu Trilogy is not just a depressing evocation of poverty. It is universal in its scope and its depiction of family relationships. And it contains images of such great beauty that they can only be called visual poetry. This is what "humanistic" filmmaking is all about.

4.The Apartment: Every time I see Billy Wilder's The Apartment, I can see its flaws more clearly - it's overlong, Jack Lemmon's acting is a little too hammy, and some of the supporting acting is rather wooden. But Wilder's film is uncommonly affecting, and it strikes a balance between comedy and drama that few films achieve. Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, an employee in a huge corportation who works his way up by lending out his apartment to his philandering superiors. From this plot Wilder fashions both a cynical satire on the business world and a warm romantic comedy. In addition to the obvious charms of the cast and script, the film earns extra points for its gorgeous, wide-screen, black and white cinematography. Expect more on Wilder - as soon as I see a few more of his films, I'm going to do a retrospective post on the blog.

3. Three Colors Trilogy: Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy is based on the three colors of the French flag, and their respective values (liberty, equality, and fraternity). But like Kieslowski's similarly masterful The Decalogue, the films do not get bogged down in abstract theories, but relate with the trials and struggles of real people. The characterizations - by the screewnriters and Kieslowski's cast - are wonderfully nuanced, and Kieslowski's assured direction and perfectly composed images let us known we are in the hands of a master. I recently re-watched these films, about a year after I saw them for the first time, and they still hold up. I even grew to appreciate White, which I had mixed feelings about the first time around but which I now think is just as good as Blue and Red.

2. Nashville: This film - running 2 hours and 40 minutes, virtually plotless, with a cast of 24 characters - could have so easily degenerated into a rambling mess. But Robert Altman somehow makes it work. It's a satire, a character drama, a musical, and a loopy comedy all rolled into one, and one of the film's strength is that it is so mysterious, so hard to classify. That may not sound very appealing, but make no mistake, Nashville is fun, populated with goofy songs and appealing characters. It also, of course, has quite a lot to say about America in the 1970s. I have already seen Nashville twice, and no doubt will return again and again.

1. Persona: There's a certain tendency, I think, to see Ingmar Bergman as the King of pretension, obvious symbolism, and arthouse clichés. That does him a great disservice, especially in a masterpiece like Persona. The film tells the apparently simple story of two women - an actress who has inexplicably decided to stop speaking, and the nurse who is assigned to take care of her. Bergman is at the height of his powers here, and his sheer command of his form is too strong to dismiss the film as pretentious twaddle. The cinematography is so perfect that every shot seems to be a representation of the film's themes. The result is unsettling, dreamlike, and beautiful - "a poem in images," as Bergman called it.

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):
- Trouble in Paradise
- The Graduate
- Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
- The Decalogue
- In Bruges
- Hiroshima mon Amour
- Network
- Bed and Board
- Sunset Boulevard
- Manhattan
- Swing Time
- Pickpocket
- A Woman Under the Influence
- Ace in the Hole
- Bride of Frankenstein
- Singin' in the Rain

Coming soon to the blog (and I do mean soon!): a review of Masaki Kobayashi's nine and a half hour epic, The Human Condition!

Triple Feature: Taxi Driver (1976) / Goodfellas (1990) / The Departed (2006)

Martin Scorsese is widely hailed as one of the great American directors, yet before I began this blog I had only seen three Scorsese films, and abnormal ones at that – The Last Waltz, No Direction Home, and The Aviator. I have never been particularly attracted by his films’ subject matter, which often tends toward the extremely and unpleasantly violent. But after seeing the astonishing work of filmmaking that is Raging Bull, I decided to catch up with three Scorsese classics. Taxi Driver, which has been called by some the best film of the 70s, is a psychological thriller from the point of view of a mentally unstable cab driver. Goodfellas is Scorsese’s widely praised drama about life in the mob over the course of three decades. And The Departed, the film for which Scorsese finally won an Oscar, is a crime drama about an Irish mob and corruption in the Boston police department.

Taxi Driver is the oldest of the three films, and certainly the most daring. Goodfellas and The Departed, for all their merits, are basically genre films, but Taxi Driver is a bold, unconventional portrait of a man losing his grip on reality. Robert DeNiro, in one of his most famous performances, plays Travis Bickle, a war veteran who is now a taxi driver in New York City. Suffering from insomnia, he spends his sleepless nights shuttling people across the city, always repulsed by what he sees. “All the animals come out at night,” Bickle declares, describing the whores, drug dealers, and addicts he sees every night. “Some day a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. “ Bickle sees a glimpse of hope in his miserable life when he meets a beautiful young campaign worker (Cybil Shepherd), but their relationship soon backfires. He also gets involved in the life of a 12 year-old prostitute (Jodie Foster), whom he tries to save before it is too late. In the end, alienated by society, Bickle resorts to shocking violence.

When I sat down to watch Taxi Driver, I expected to see a violent revenge movie more than anything else. But the film is deeper than that. It is a contemplative, brooding film about loneliness and alienation. Everything is seen from Bickle’s perspective, and the driving scenes perfectly emphasize his isolation from the rest of society – separated by that little plastic window, mired in shadow, and ignored by his customers, we begin to understand Bickle’s frustration – although the film wisely never tries to explain Bickle’s actions. Rather, it relies on the strength of DeNiro’s performance, who makes the whole thing seem believable.

Yet for all its strengths, I cannot pretend that I walked away from Taxi Driver with any lasting impression, or real insight. There is nothing particularly wrong with the film – DeNiro’s performance is excellent, Bernard Herrmann’s eerie score is memorable, and the cinematography is remarkable. But for all of its efforts to delve into Bickle’s psyche, I never became invested in the character – I always remained emotionally aloof, like Bickle himself.

I was less impressed with Goodfellas, one of Scorsese’s most popular and critically acclaimed films. The film, as its tagline declares, depicts three decades of life in the Mafia. Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) grows up in the 50s in Brookyln, and as a teenager becomes attracted to the allure of Mafia life – the cars, the money, the privileges. Much to the concern of his parents, Henry begins working for the local family, led by Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), and the notoriously violent Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) and Jimmy Conway (Robert DeNiro). Soon, Henry quits school and becomes part of the mob full time. Despite initial happiness, Henry’s lifestyle eventually leads him to a drug addiction, jail time, and an unhappy marriage, before he winds up in FBI Witness Protection limbo, where he still longs to return to the life of a “Goodfella.”

Goodfellas has often been compared to The Godfather, but for me there is no comparison. I will concede that Goodfellas is no doubt the more realistic mob movie – for all of its artistry, The Godfather is somewhat romanticized, the violence buried under slick montages and swelling music. Scorsese doesn’t fall for that – the violence is frequent, graphic, sudden, and often quite shocking. His movie is certainly an accurate portrait of the Mafia in America, and the performances all ring true. The dialogue always seems realistic and spontaneous, never rehearsed. Scorsese also does a suitable job of depicting the allure of Mafia life. The early scenes are at times playful and fun, reflecting Henry’s naïve perspective on the Mafia. “We were treated like movie stars with muscle,” Henry’s narration tells us, “we had it all just for the asking.” This at first glorious life is depicted with great flair in a long tracking shot where Henry and a date skip the line at an expensive restaurant, make their way through the kitchen, and find their seats while everyone else is standing outside in the cold. Of course, Henry’s lifestyle soon backfires into a hopelessly violent and amoral one.

But after a while, it seems like that is all Goodfellas has to offer – a series of violent, unpleasant incidents. The film lacks any basic sense of humanity, like The Godfather had. None of the characters are relatable. None of the characters are remorseful. And the film lacks any sense of elegance or grace. That may seem an odd complaint for a Mafia movie, but compare it to Taxi Driver. Both films deal with violent, disturbing material, but Taxi Driver uses violence sparingly, and does have a certain elegance about it. Goodfellas is just coarse, and in the end Scorsese relies too heavily on gratuitous violence to make his point – and there doesn’t seem to be much of a point anyway.

I will probably sound like a hypocrite for praising The Departed, because it suffers from many of the same flaws as Goodfellas – overlength, excessive violence, an over-reliance on four-letter words. But I found The Departed totally gripping from its first frame. The film begins with a narration by Irish mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), who declares, “I don’t want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.” In an opening prologue set to the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” Scorsese masterfully sets the scene, depicting Costello’s game – bribing kids off the streets of Boston, pulling them away from the Church and indoctrinating them into his mob. Flash forward many years later, and one such mobster, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) has become a mole in the Special Investigations Unit of the Massachusetts State Police. At the same time, the SIU sends its own mole, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) into Costello’s gang. Of course, both sides soon become aware of an intruder, and a bloody cat-and-mouse game ensues.

As I mentioned earlier, The Departed is essentially a genre film, a basic crime story– Scorsese isn’t really experimenting here, he’s playing it safe with familiar material. But what a crime movie it is! The whole film crackles along at a galloping pace, propelled by strong performances. Part of the joy of watching The Departed is to see the giants of 70s cinema – actors like Jack Nicholson and Martin Sheen – matched with some of the most talented actors of today, like DiCaprio, Damon, and Mark Wahlberg. The cast is uniformly solid, particularly Nicholson, who is a genuinely frightening presence. The film also has a tremendous sense of location, making full use of its Boston setting. I was skeptical about The Departed – despite its Best Picture win, I had heard criticisms that it was excessively violent, warmed-over Scorsese. Yet all of these criticisms were trampled by the film’s narrative drive, and the sheer talent of all the players involved.

Taxi Driver: B+
GoodFellas: B
The Departed: A-

Raging Bull (1980)

We all know the classic underdog story - a young, up-and-coming athlete with a troubled past upsets a formidable opponent to be crowned the new champion. Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull turns this formula on its head, depicting a talented boxer who wins the championship but alienates his friends and family, eventually becoming a fat drunkard who performs terrible nightclub acts. Raging Bull is a biopic, telling the true story of Jake LaMotta, but it is so much more than a simple memoir. It is a story about failure to communicate, and about sexism, and about family. It is also a textbook example of acting, editing, and cinematography - all in service of a deeply human story.

After a brief scene in 1964, in which LaMotta (Robert De Niro) rehearses his nightclub routine, the film cuts to a fight in 1941 between LaMotta and Jimmy Reeves. Immediately we can see that Scorsese is not interested in toning down the violence. The fights in the film are brutal - blood flies, sweat drips, smoke drifts, and lightbulbs flash. At times, unconventional sound effects like swooping birds are used as LaMotta closes in on his prey. Slow-motion is used to great effect, and the sheer violence is striking - not only for the combatants, but for the fight's audience as well. After a controversial decision in the first fight, a brawl erupts in the audience that culminates in several women being trampled by men. In another fight, LaMotta throws a punch that sends blood splattering into several spectators' faces. But even in their brutality, many of the images in the fight scenes have a certain beauty to them. In one slo-mo shot, water is poured over LaMotta and it gently cascades downward. In another shot, the rope boundaries of the ring literally drip with blood. These masterful, unrelenting sequences lose little of their effectiveness today, even though they have been aped countless times in other films.

Soon after the first fight, Jake's brother and manager Joey (Joe Pesci) introduces him to Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), a beautiful 15 year-old whom Jake becomes infatuated with, despite having a wife at home. Jake's relationship with his wife is abusive - he screams at her for overcooking his steak, throws tables around the house, and threatens her. His relationship with Vickie is downright gentle compared to his abusive relationship with his wife. It is only when he actually marries Vickie that his attitude changes. Jake expects Vickie to obey him blindly - to fetch him coffee and be a nice little housewife with no social life of her own. When his brother Joey asks Jake to apologize to Vickie, Jake can't do it. He doesn't understand that Vickie feels like a prisoner, and instead of apologizing he just starts making out with her. To Jake Vickie is just an object, a disposable pleasure rather than a serious partner. Needless to say, the marriage turns to distrust, abuse, and eventually separation by the end of the movie.

Another pivotal relationship in the film is the one between Jake and his brother Joey. On the surface, the two are very similar, with hot tempers and loud mouths. But Joey is fundamentally different from his brother. He cares more deeply about his family and is far more reasonable than Jake. At one point, though, Joey's temper gets the better of him, and he gets into a huge bar brawl with a man he suspects of sleeping with Vickie. It is abundantly clear that Joey deeply loves his brother, but it seems that the only way he can express this love is through blind rage. The same is true of Jake. In one scene, Jake has the preposterous idea that Joey slept with Vickie, and he barges into his house to fight him. When Vickie later urges Jake to apologize for this misunderstanding, Jake can't do it - even over the phone. There is a real inability to communicate between these two characters, and by the end of the film Jake has completely alienated Joey.

De Niro is fascinating to watch in the scenes that depict Jake's later years. It is well-known cinematic lore that De Niro put on a significant amount of weight to play this role, but the performance goes beyond physical transformation. De Niro perfectly expresses a sort of phoned-in happiness that masks a layer of sorrow. In his later years, Jake fools himself into believing that he is happy, when it is clear to everyone else that he is not. We first see the older Jake in 1956 Miami being photographed for a newspaper. He sits by a pool, explaining why he is happiest in retirement - how he doesn't have to worry about weight and can spend more time with his family. Minutes later, of course, we see a drunken Jake telling unfunny jokes at his nightclub, we see Vickie finally announce that she will leave him, and we see Jake thrown into a jail cell, where he smashes his head against the wall, screaming "Why? Why? Why?" And in the final scene, before he goes on stage, he addresses himself in the mirror: "Go get 'em, champ." He still thinks he's a champion, even when no one else does.

I notice that I have spent a lot of time describing the characters and relationships of Raging Bull without critiquing it very much. But there is really not a whole lot to criticize about the movie. My only gripe, perhaps is that the film feels disjointed at times. The storyline skips years at a time without seeming like any time has passed at all. This is particularly problematic for Cathy Moriarty, who plays the crucial role of Vickie. The actress, who was 19 at the time of shooting, seems far older than 15 in the early scenes and far younger than 30 or so in the later scenes. Still, her performance itself cannot be faulted.

Raging Bull is truly a film where all of the elements come together. De Niro is rightly praised for his performance, but the film's success belongs equally to Scorsese, to the other cast members, to the screenwriters, to the editor, and to the cinematographer. It is rightly revered as a masterpiece, and 28 years later it regularly tops lists of the greatest films of all time. Funny, then, to think that Raging Bull nearly never got made. Scorsese repeatedly turned it down, and fell far behind schedule during production. But he prevailed, and delivered a true masterpiece.

Verdict: A