ARK CINEMA: Remembrance of Great Movies.

ARK CINEMA

* denotes masterwork.
** denotes masterwork above and beyond the call of art.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION: The following list is a work in progress. It is the collection of the absolute best of the best, masterworks of the cinematic pantheon. Many great films haven't made the cut for the simple reason that criteria involved here are especially high. Imagine an emergency project of preserving the very best films, a kind of Noah's Ark of Cinema. Necessarily, this is not a list of personal favorites. Nor is it a list of most popular or beloved films. Nor does it pander to intellectual fads and fashions in film/cultural theory. It is a list, compiled with sincerity and seriousness, of what I consider to the greatest achievements in film art. Needless to say, there are surely many great films I've yet to see(or have seen but perhaps have yet to appreciate)and so cinema continues to be an open field with worlds yet to discover.

The films are organized around directors on the basis of the Auteur Theory, which ideally identifies the director as the main 'author' of the film. Though far from perfect as theories go, it is inarguable that most, though not all, great films are the products of unique directorial personality, vision, and style. We mustn't of course undervalue the contributions of others. After all, what would Leone's Dollars Trilogy be without the music of Morricone or the presence of Clint Eastwood? However, it is most often the greatest directors who bring out the very best in their collaborators. It is no accident that Nino Rota composed some of his best music for Fellini, Sven Nykvist shot his most haunting images for Bergman, and De Niro performed some of his most memorable roles for Scorsese. Also, we are more likely to find a common styles and thematic concerns among films on the basis of directorship than any other factor. For example, though Ingmar Bergman made comedies, tragedies, and dramas with various actors and crew members, all of his films are recognizable as part of genus Cinematicus Bergmanius. The same cannot be said of, for example, Ingrid Thulin, an actress who starred in several Bergman films. The fact that she was in Bergman's WINTER LIGHT and Visconti's THE DAMNED doesn't tell us much about either film. It is far more instructive to consider WINTER LIGHT as a Bergman drama and THE DAMNED as a Visconti epic. The only other players who generally compete with the director as The Author of film are the writer, producer, and especially today, the wizards of special effects. But generally, the writer has minimal power in the making of the film, and his original work is often revised by many other writers--and even by the director and producer. The producer generally wields the greatest influence on most Hollywood movies, but that usually explains why most movies tend to be generic and formulaic. Producers press the directors-hired-as-hacks to conform to the presumed or even prefixed appetites of the masses. On occasion, the producer is both a visionary and populist who combines originality and accessibility in guiding and inspiring the director to make the 'perfect movie'--a work of art beloved by all. But more often than not, great films are the products of directors left alone to pursue their personal visions. With great advancements in film and computer technology, it is more difficult to tell where creative direction ends and where fanciful gadgetry begins. For example, how much of LOTR was the work of Peter Jackson and how much the product of the CGI Acme department? Nevertheless, if one were to compare the movies of Spielberg and Michael Bay, it's clear that money and technology alone don't make the magic. After all, whatever latest technology may be available, architecture still relies on the creative talent of the artist. So, it shall remain with cinema. At the end of the day, the great films are more the feats of imagination than of engineering, which is why Spielberg is a great moviemaker but James Cameron is not.

That said, some of the greatest films are less the products of directors shouting out commands than making sparks via the friction of creative collaboration. Great directors bring out the best in others, but others, if they're good, also bring out the best in the director. It is a two-way than a one-way street. Would Coppola have achieved cinematic immortality without the collaboration of Mario Puzo, Al Pacino, and John Milius? Auteur Theory suggests that various collaborators revolve around the director. Though the astronomical metaphor is apt in many cases, creativity often tends to be more on the chemical or alchemical side. Inspiration is a key component of creativity, and inspiration, like fire, doesn't come from nowhere. When fire is created by rubbing of two sticks of wood, the credit belongs not only to stick A or stick B but also to the very process of friction. So, even though the director is the biggest stick in filmmaking, it ideally rubs against the other sticks than lords over as the only club in town, batting down all the others. Near total control by the director may work for smaller, highly personal films, e.g. those of Robert Bresson and Yasujiro Ozu. And it may work even on a large scale on occasion; 2001 by Kubrick and PLAYTIME by Tati, though it must be noted Kubrick worked in close collaboration with the Douglas Trumbull. More often than not, director as tyrannical club produces stuff as ridiculous as Bertolucci's 1900 or Michael Cimino's monstrous HEAVEN'S GATE(which however does have its moments).

REVISED INTRODUCTION: As is so often the case, the original aim of this project was compromised–or corrupted–with the ever irresistible temptation to add more titles falling short of masterpiece status. As with any experiment, permitting a bit of impurity contaminates the entire batch.
On the other hand, art is neither science nor religion. There is no infallibly objective way to measure absolute greatness, and it is pointless to argue what is and isn’t truly sacred in art. Art is made and graded by man, not by God or the gods.
Furthermore, list-making isn’t the same as wine making. Impurities which may ruin wines may, in certain cases, enrich art and culture. Some of the most memorable works of art are deeply or even fundamentally flawed; yet, those flaws may, on occasion, work to advantage by casting odd shadows on what might otherwise have been blaring brightness. Sun spots don’t destroy the sun; indeed, they make the sun more interesting. And though man conceived of God as Perfection, His flaws are as interesting as His purported perfection. This isn’t to say flaws are of the essence or constitute a natural advantage in art. Generally they are damaging, rather like genetic mutations. But just as certain mutations contribute something new–even something advantageous–, artistic flaws can sometimes be the budding of new possibilities that have yet to prove their worth. In another way, like birthmarks, freckles , or scars, flaws can add character or the element of humanness to a work of art. Independent films may not be up to professional standards technically, but the crudities can add a measure of vitality. Or, the crowd-pleasing elements of a film may make up in charm what they take away in consistency. Though people aim for perfection, nothing is as unhuman as perfection.

That said, upon reviewing the list I admit some titles fall rather too short of greatness, flaw or no flaw. And some titles, upon closer inspection, probably reflect my personal tastes or favoritism than genuine conviction of their pantheon status.
Though the initial attempt was to make the list as infallible as possible, it is now a collection of great films and not-exactly-great-films with something extra to recommend them.

The list is now something more, which may be something less. The more it gains in titles, the more it loses in its mission statement.
There is no other way I can justify titles such as RISKY BUSINESS, MODERN ROMANCE, CINEMA PARADISO, THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT, and ZATOICHI movies among others.
Of course, I am tempted to turn the list into something far more comprehensive, incorporating all near-great films and personal favorites of dubious artistic worth. But, if the peak of absolute greatness is too steep and frosty a climb, the opposite presents its own slippery hazards that may take us all the way down to bottom of the valley.

Finally, it should be obvious to anyone familiar with the Auteur Theory that this list has violated its precepts time and again in including great or special films by directors not exactly known for their auteur-ship. Who exactly would be the real auteur on a film like GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS or WIZARD OF OZ? And the inclusion of A CHRISTMAS STORY demonstrates that a generally mediocre director can rise to unexpected heights with excellent material and fine actors. So, even though the list is centered around directors, what it ultimately proves is a great film doesn’t necessarily require a Great Auteur.

* denotes masterwork.
** denotes masterwork above and beyond the call of art.

ORSON WELLES CITIZEN KANE** MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS** LADY FROM SHANGHAI**MACBETHMR. ARKADINTOUCH OF EVIL**THE TRIALCHIMES AT MIDNIGHT**F FOR FAKE

What kind of director was Orson Welles? If he’d only directed his lesser films–MACBETH, THE STRANGER, OTHELLO, MR. ARKADIN, THE TRIAL, and F FOR FAKE–, he would still rank as one of the greats. MACBETH, MR. ARKADIN, and THE TRIAL are extraordinary in many respects but fatally flawed in some way. MACBETH, shot in two weeks, looks crude and incomplete though the immediacy and vitality almost make up for its deficiencies. THE STRANGER is a superior B-movie thriller but doesn’t rise above the genre. MR. ARKADIN, like OTHELLO, has a great opening scene and is fascinating on many levels but feels like patchwork. THE TRIAL, adapted from the Kafka novel, is haunting and striking in its  journey through the paranoid maze but fundamentally misconceived. Be that as it may, the biggest obstacle to Welles’ genius was lack of funding. After his first two films, he never had enough money and didn’t always spend wisely what he had. CITIZEN KANE, considered the Mona Lisa of cinema, is his most famous work, but MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS was probably his greatest work, that is until it was cut from the original 140 minutes to 87 minutes. Still magnificient in its truncated version, the original cut was perhaps the greatest film that could ever be made. Alas, we'll never see it.

ALFRED HITCHCOCKLADY VANISHESSHADOW OF A DOUBT*SPELLBOUNDNOTORIOUSLIFEBOATUNDER CAPRICORN*STRANGERS ON A TRAIN*REAR WINDOW**THE WRONG MANVERTIGO**NORTH BY NORTHWESTPSYCHO*THE BIRDS*MARNIEFans of Hitchcock may bemoan the injustice of representing the Master of Suspense with only seven films(though he tops most other directors in this list). Fair enough. If I were to include every near-great(or merely great as opposed to especially great)movie by Hitchcock, ten more could easily have been added: NORTH BY NORTHWEST, SUSPICION, SPELLBOUND, MARNIE, NOTORIOUS, WRONG MAN, LIFEBOAT, LADY VANISHES, THE ROPE, MANXMAN. Indeed several more: BLACKMAIL, SABOTEUR, DIAL M FOR MURDER, etc. Even Hitchcock’s minor or bad films are more interesting than the films of most major directors. At any rate, I limited Hitchcock to the seven above because they represent the fullest realization of his ambition as both entertainer and artist. REAR WINDOW and VERTIGO are, in my estimation, his two greatest films, possibly the only ones worthy of designation as full-fledged works of art. STRANGERS ON THE TRAIN and THE BIRDS are probably the weakest of the bunch. THE BIRDS is essentially a one-idea & one-trick pony but masterly in its perverse eroticism. STRANGERS has a great villain and plot mechanics but is marred by the Farley Granger as the entrapped husband. Even so, it features some of Hitchcock’s most memorable images and set pieces, enough to merit its place in Ark Cinema. The most controversial title is surely UNDER CAPRICORN, a favorite of the French critics(who later became famous as New Wave directors). Hitchcock himself dismissed it as an abject failure, and it certainly has its share of problems, which, however, also serve as a kind of virtue. The color scheme, for example, is damp and drab, unpleasant to the eye, but the stale and shabby mood lends a feeling of depressive desperation to the near-tragic material. Joseph Cotten looks ill-at-ease as the romantic lead, but it suits his dilemma as a tormented soul whose defense mechanism against the world is bitter contempt. NOTE: Due to the revision of the Ark criteria, LADY VANISHES, SPELLBOUND, NOTORIOUS, WRONG MAN, LIFEBOAT, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, and etc. have been added.

AKIRA KUROSAWA SANSHIRO SUGATA

MEN WHO TREAD ON THE TIGER'S TAILONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY

STRAY DOGSCANDAL

RASHOMON*
IKIRU*
SEVEN SAMURAI**
RECORD OF A LIVING BEING(aka I LIVE IN FEAR)

THRONE OF BLOOD*THE BAD SLEEP WELLYOJIMBO*SANJURO

HIGH AND LOW*RED BEARDDERSU UZALA*

KAGEMUSHA*RANAs with Hitchcock, Kurosawa had a long illustrious career. Unlike Hitchcock he had a long dry spell while still at the peak of his powers. Between DODESKADEN(1970) and KAGEMUSHA(1980), he made only one film DERSU UZALA(for the Soviet Union). One could argue that he was in decline as an artist from the mid 60s to the mid 80s, when, by some miracle, he made what most critics consider to his greatest work except for SEVEN SAMURAI, namely RAN. If not for KAGEMUSHA and RAN, one could write off Kurosawa as an important artist after YOJIMBO(or RED BEARD if we want to be generous). DERSU UZALA is a splendid work, unmistakably that of a master but lacks for vitality. It’s a movie seen from the outside but not really felt from the inside. At his best, Kurosawa drew us into his characters. The problem with DERSU was possibly the result of misunderstandings between Kurosawa and the Soviet film crew. But, a similar problem drags much of RED BEARD, which, after the fine first act, turns into a long preachy sermon about ‘little people’. DODESKADEN, possibly his worst film, is like a combination of LOWER DEPTHS and RED DESERT: an earthy story of slum-dwellers used for garish avant-garde visual experimentation that ill-suits the material. It’s like skid row as color-coded conceptual art.
Then, why do I say Kurosawa suffered a long dry spell during the peak of his powers? Because KAGEMUSHA and RAN, his last two major films, make it clear that Kurosawa was still the Emperor of cinema, a titan to marshal the forces of nature(and human nature). Though hailed as a great comeback in 1980, KAGEMUSHA has since been overshadowed by RAN, which garnered the lion’s share of critical praise. I’m one of the few dissenters to this conventional wisdom, which is why RAN has been left out of Ark Cinema. While the first hour of RAN ranks with the Kurosawa's best, much of the middle part is unbearable–especially the scenes with Hidetora and the jester. The movie returns to life in the final part, but the key moment of tragedy is completely botched. I consider RAN a film of greatness but not a fully great film. KAGEMUSHA, in contrast, is not as visually splendorous as RAN but features better storytelling. As character study and psycho-political drama, exceptionally insightful and moving. It has two major flaws: mediocre symphonic score and tragic overstatement with slo-motion and blaring trumpets following the last battle, but they are blemishes in what is otherwise a great film. One other film that I wanted to add is BAD SLEEP WELL, a dark and brooding foray into the world of corporate corruption. Sorry to say, it is brought down by plot mechanisms too clever for their own good. Except for SEVEN SAMURAI and YOJIMBO, even the great films of Kurosawa have some serious flaws–for example the overacting of Mifune and the ridiculous music in RASHOMON, the exaggerated gestures in THRONE OF BLOOD, the didactic anti-drug imagery in HIGH AND LOW, etc–, but the power, originality, and boldness more than make up for the shortcomings. Needless to say, even Kurosawa’s lesser films have much to recommend them. SANSHIRO SUGATA, MEN WHO TREAD ON THE TIGER’S TAIL, NO REGRETS FOR OUR YOUTH, LOWER DEPTHS, I LIVE IN FEAR, HIDDEN FORTRESS, DREAMS, and several others are full of warmth, beauty, and courage. NOTE: Due to revision in the Ark Criteria, BAD SLEEP WELL and RAN have been added.

SERGEI EISENSTEINSTRIKEBATTLESHIP POTEMKIN*
OCTOBER**
QUE VIVA MEXICO!*
ALEXANDER NEVSKY*
IVAN THE TERRIBLE**IVAN THE TERRIBLE PART IIFew film artists were as blessed and cursed as Sergei Eisenstein. Trained in engineering and theater, his creative approach was scientific and poetic. He is as remembered for his theories on film as for his films, and indeed his films were theorems put into practice. In terms of sheer talent and intelligence, he outshines everyone in the first half of the 20th century, with the possible exceptions of Fritz Lang and Orson Welles. Another stroke of good fortune was the Bolshevik Revolution. A Jewish leftist, Eisenstein avidly supported the communist revolution and lent his talent to its struggle. It was as if the planets were perfectly aligned and smiling down on his fate... but then Stalin gained absolute power and breathed heavily down on ‘formalism’, codeword for experimentation and intellectualism in the arts. Worse, Stalin was quite ruthless in implementing his cultural policies, turning many an artist into nervous wrecks.

On the other hand, Stalin was neither a culturally rigid dogmatist like Hitler–for whom creativity was all about racial correctness–nor a lame-brained simpleton like Mao who had no use for art and culture at all. Though cultural life was severely limited in the Soviet Union, Stalin could be surprisingly lenient and supportive at times. In a way, this made things more dangerous for artists because they never knew if Stalin would approve or disapprove of their ideas. Reading Stalin’s mind was like forecasting the weather during hurricane season; one never knew which one would make landfall. Stalin would be genuinely supportive of artists at one moment but then suddenly do an about-face. To what extent this had to do with cultural policy, personality, or mood swings, no one knew for sure--and maybe Stalin wanted it that way, just as some dictatorial film directors produce tension on the set to keep everyone on edge. Creating art in this context was like playing the slot machine and the Russian Roulette. One could be rewarded handsomely or end up dead.

Ironically enough, Stalin’s ‘cultural conservatism’ actually did some good for Russia. By the early 30s, the experimental school had already run its course–as all movements do. Also, even at its creative height, it produced mostly agitprop than art. More importantly, Stalin was less destructive than some of the more radical communists(some of whom were supportive of the ‘formalist’ school; it is a common but grave mistake to think that the avant-garde artists of the early Soviet period were for artistic freedom; in fact, they were only for freedom for revolutionary artists, namely themselves, and, if anything, they were even more totalitarian and intolerant of ‘reactionary’, ‘feudal’, or ‘bourgeois’ culture than even the Stalinists were; indeed, some of them opposed Stalinism precisely because it revived certain elements of Old Culture. Like today’s politically correct ‘artists’ and commissars, the avant-garde-ists of early Bolshevism were NOT cultural libertarians but radical seekers of total power). Stalin, though Georgian in origin, was also something of a Russian nationalist who believed traditional culture should be preserved as long as it posed no threat to the new order. Stalin smashed his share of churches, but more would have been destroyed if Jewish communists had taken power.

Eisenstein, for whom everything seemed to be going right in the 1920s, got into some serious trouble by the decade’s end. During the early years of the Revolution, he was hailed around the world as the wunderkind of Soviet film art, a kind of communist Spielberg. His silent films such as BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN and OCTOBER were praised, studied, and imitated endlessly. But, as Stalin gained a firm grip on power, Eisenstein came under suspicion as a Trotkyite. The original cut of OCTOBER was ordered re-cut to minimize(and even vilify) Trotsky’s role in the Revolution. Though or precisely because it was such a dauntingly awesome piece of work, it then came under attack by Stalinists for the crime of ‘formalism’–something for ‘bourgeois’ aesthetes than a work of art for the masses.

Soon after, the introduction of sound complicated Eisenstein’s theories of montage. Film, as conceived by Eisenstein prior to sound, was less about stories and characters than an exposition on political and economic forces in history. In a way, his silent films were less motion pictures than motion posters, works of propaganda or political ads. Had he not been so gifted with visionary and poetic power, his films might today be of historical than artistic interest. But what an eye he had for composition, what instinct for motion, and what intellect to formulate ideas into possibilities. An able propagandist makes the good guys look good and bad guys look bad. A great artist, on the other hand, makes even the bad guys compelling and memorable, and Eisenstein was one of the great artists of the 20th century. Even his incomplete and crudely assembled QUE VIVA MEXICO! is a powerhouse of images, symbols, and moods.

With the coming of sound, however, characters needed to be flesh-n-blood individuals than merely representatives/archetypes of political ideas. Sound coincided with the triumph of cultural Stalinism. It wasn’t sure if Eisenstein could survive, let alone thrive, in the new order. With the looming German threat, Eisenstein came into good graces with the great national epic ALEXANDER NEVSKY. Having gained Stalin’s confidence, Eisenstein proceeded to work on a bolder project, IVAN THE TERRIBLE, his greatest work. Stalin loved it but then hated Part II.
Eisenstein fell out of favor again and died before completing part III.
Few artists arrived at such an opportune moment in history and with such stellar combination of talent and credentials. That was Eisenstein’s enviable fortune. And given the non-commercial nature of his films, an Eisenstein(like Leni Riefenstahl) wouldn’t have been possible in the capitalist West, especially in Hollywood-dominated America.
In the end, it’s tragic that an artist of such caliber finished only a handful of films and died in abject fear of authority that had both hallowed and haunted him. But given his willing participation in one of the most brutal regimes in world history responsible for the deaths of millions, perhaps there was a poetic justice in the way he fell from grace.
Nevertheless, in terms of bravura originality and mastery of the film medium, only a handful of directors are even remotely comparable to Eisenstein: Lang, Welles, Mizoguchi, Kubrick, Spielberg, and perhaps Scorsese.

JOHN FORDSTAGECOACHMY DARLING CLEMENTINE*THE SEARCHERS*
MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE John Ford directed something in the order of a hundred movies, and many of them are surely of interest only to film scholars. Even so, I can’t even claim to have seen all the major ones — GRAPES OF WRATH, HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, SERGEANT RUTLEDGE  among others. I remember liking THE INFORMER as a child but haven’t seen it since. But all said and done, Ford always struck me as a great good director than a great great director, but this isn’t necessarily a strike against him since, by temperament and vision, he wasn’t a showman or showoff. Ford never attempted anything on the scale or scope of CITIZEN KANE, 2001, SEVEN SAMURAI, TEN COMMANDMENTS, LOLA MONTEZ, LA DOLCE VITA, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, or even Howard Hawks’ RED RIVER. He worked on some big productions like DONOVAN’S REEF and CHEYENNE AUTUMN but in a low-key manner that was the hallmark of Ford’s near invisible style. No matter where the story was set or how big the production, the Ford universe was an enclosed box of rules regulating the motion and/or emotion of every object and character. This made most of his movies, especially in the later period, all of one piece, either worthy of admiration as a unified vision of life or ripe for derision for their lack of imagination, as if no matter the recipes and ingredients Ford was presented with, he could only make macaroni and cheese. Though Ford is often associated with Monumental Valley, aka ‘Ford Country’, contrast his approach with that of Leone’s in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. For Leone, the famous valley was space; for Ford it was a place. One might characterize Ford’s relatively smallness of vision as dramatically cramped and simpleminded, but there was a genuineness of heart beating with elements of nobility, even an unassuming grandeur that was very American, i.e. that a man’s stature should be measured by deeds and character than by style and hogging for attention. A Ford hero is one who does and walks away, not one who does and then gets up on stage or does not yet hogs the credit, which is why the James Stewart character in MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE is tormented for the rest of his life. Though the director who’s most often been compared to Ford is Kurosawa, I would argue that Ozu and Naruse, at least among Japanese directors, were closer to Ford. By visual evidence, Kurosawa’s main inspiration had to have been German(especially Lang) and Russian(Eisenstein, Dovzhenko, Pudovkin) than American. In more ways than one, Ford was a minimalist, either out of a purity of vision or limitation of ability. Kurosawa, in contrast, was most famous for his maximalist movies like SEVEN SAMURAI and RAN. Ford was to American cinema what meat and potatoes is to American cuisine. Not particularly fancy or flavorful but hearty. Especially given the state of American popular culture lately, with all manners of excesses in movies, TV, video-games, music, and politics, Ford’s movies have special value as a moral and cultural compass, pointing to the place from which we came but have since forgotten, not least due to political correctness, which allows revisiting of the past only through shrill and selective judgmentalism, and to pornitarianism, which has little use for things that don’t lend immediate pleasure. Ford’s movies were not truthful about real American history — few Hollywood movies ever were — , but they did embody virtues integral to the development of the American character. And far from being mindless celebrations of the American past or present, they stared into the fetid well of hypocrisies that have ailed this nation, indeed humanity, from the beginning. Some Fordian values may now seen old-fashioned, irrelevant, or even evil — hardly surprising in a world where the highest form of moral virtue is supporting ‘gay marriage’ — but only because those values were integral to the creation of a new social order where people with full stomachs could come to take things for granted. Ford belonged to a time when people, American and Irish, knew what real hunger meant and relied on moral strength and physical stamina to preserve themselves, an alien concept in our world where even privileged upper class white women bitch and whine that birth control pills should be made available to them as a ‘right’. Ford was well aware that civilization is built on the shoulders of hard work and moral character but also understood that history was never as simple as ‘good guy’ vs ‘bad guy’. Even ‘good people’ must do ‘bad things’ to create a good society, so everyone becomes stained with the sin of history, one way or another. And when good times flows from the good society, people forget the dreary past with its stories of hardship or they pass simple judgments about ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’ — especially fed to them by liberal/leftist Jews to undermine faith and pride in white civilization — without taking into account the different realities faced by their progenitors. It’s too easy to denounce ‘racism’ in the white man’s treatment of the American Indians if one never had to worry about Indian raids. Of course, Indians had their own narratives and justifications, which is why there’s no simple ‘good vs bad’ in history, and despite the white-centrism of Ford’s movies, he understood and respected the Red man, at least on terms more realistic than among those weaned on simple-minded political correctness that divides the world/history into a simple game of ‘evil racists’ and ‘good egalitarians’(and supporters of ‘gay marriage’). To the extent that most of Ford’s films are about people struggling for existence — against the elements, savages, poverty, political turmoil, and/or the darkness within one’s own heart — , they have a moral value not unlike the stories in the Old Testament. Just as the Bible tells of an imperfect tribe wandering through the wilderness with a dream of conquering, founding, and settling the Promised Land, Ford’s films, especially his Westerns, remind us of the struggles involved in the clash of egos, civilizations and cultures, man and nature, man and man, and man and God. Was Ford an ‘artist’? No in the strictest meaning of ‘artist’. Ford worked within genres, and even his movies that questioned the veracity of genres, such as THE SEARCHERS and MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, more or less stayed within the bounds of audience expectations. Ford’s main genre wasn’t so much the Western as the Morality Tale. Even in the bleakest of his movies, there’s a sense that, in the final equation, the basic moral order of the universe is preserved through the grace of God and the goodness of men. It’s a comforting myth, and to the extent that such movies are still popular, not least through the efforts of Steven Spielberg, the spirit of Ford can be said to be with us, albeit in a more cynically marketable form. The three Ford movies that mean most to me are MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, THE SEARCHERS, and MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE. CLEMENTINE for its brute poetry. SEARCHERS for its darkness bordering on psycho-social complexity. And VALANCE for its elegiac beauty.

ALF SJOBERGTORMENT (writer: Bergman. Director: Alf Sjöberg.)*INGMAR BERGMANPRISON a.k.a Devil's Wanton
SUMMER WITH MONIKA*
EVENING OF THE JESTERS (a.k.a. Sawdust and Tinsel; Clown's Evening)*A LESSON IN LOVEDREAMSSMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHTSEVENTH SEAL*
WILD STRAWBERRIES THE MAGICIAN*THROUGH A GLASS DARKLYTHE SILENCEPERSONA**
SHAMEFROM THE LIFE OF THE MARIONETTESFANNY AND ALEXANDER BEST INTENTIONS (Written by Bergman. Directed by Bille August.)
PRIVATE CONFESSIONS (Written by Bergman. Directed by Liv Ullmann.)*
In terms of batting averages, Ingmar Bergman is hard to beat. He made few if any film that could be said to be truly execrable, and even his less worthy films are of some interest. Personally, I don’t much care for his films of the late 60s and 70s — despite having a soft spot for THE SERPENT’S EGG and AUTUMN SONATA — , but PASSION OF ANNA and CRIES AND WHISPERS have their defenders. And SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE was regarded very highly as a mini-TV series in Sweden and in its shortened theatrical version in America. But from 1946 to 1968, a period in which he made around 25 films, he could almost do no wrong. Not that all the films were great or even very good; at the very least, they were solid as entertainment or art.
Bergman’s star has faded over the years for any number of reasons, and this is a pity for he was one of the supreme artists of cinema. But he was not one of the supremely important artists. If Bergman had never existed, the trajectory of cinema history would have been more or less the same. While one could admire Bergman’s insights, intelligence, dedication, and craft, he was not the groundbreaking artist on the level of Eisenstein, Murnau, Welles, Hitchcock, Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, Bresson, Resnais, and Godard. While Bergman’s body of work is many times more rewarding than Godard’s, the latter’s BREATHLESS probably had a greater impact on cinema than all of Bergman’s films put together. Of course, one doesn’t have to be revolutionary or ‘radical’ to be a great artist, but because of cinema’s coming of age in a century defined by rapid change, modernists and adventurers have been favored over classicists. Even Yasujiro Ozu, despite his quiet ‘conservative’ style, devised a grammar/expression unique to cinema and like nothing else in and outside Japan. As striking and powerful as many of Bergman’s films may be — and though the Bergman Touch is readily identifiable — , he is generally regarded as a master than a visionary of film art. PERSONA is the only Bergman film that might qualify as ‘radical’, but keep in mind it came after the more remarkable LA JETEE, MURIEL, and ALPHAVILLE.
Worst of all for Bergman, he was the posterboy of the Film-as-Art crowd whose most prominent spokesman was the much loathed John Simon. Similarly, it didn’t help Lina Wertmuller’s career — at least not in the long run as the academia and media came under PC domination — to be friends with John Simon. Call it the Simon Curse. Though unspoken and unofficial, a kind of Guilt-by-Association operates in the world of cinematic appreciation and discourse. Even feminist scholars tend to dismiss Lina Wertmuller, the greatest female writer-director of cinema, because she was a ‘humanist’ than a ‘feminist’ and friendly with Simon to boot. The academia of film studies is generally a place where most people think Chantal Akerman is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time whereas Bergman is, at best, treated as the Stanley Kramer of Film-as-Art. Bergman may have struggled and overcome the repressive Lutheranism of his childhood but his reputation was no match for the neo-puritanism of the Cultural Hegemonization — and ideological homogenization — of the Institutions in the West(as especially defined by radical Jews, silly feminists, and trivialist homos).

While Bergman is one of the greatest ever in terms of his body of work, PERSONA may be his only film that rises to the ‘pantheon’ rank of ‘greatest films ever made’. Thus, Bergman is the opposite of someone like Welles and Leone who made far fewer films but more masterpieces.
As assessing artistic worth isn’t a game of number crunching, it’s pointless to say who was the ‘better’ artist. But it’s true enough that Welles had a much greater impact on cinema as a whole. To be sure, any cultural influence could be good or bad, and even the influence of good artists can have bad consequences. YOJIMBO and PSYCHO are great films, but think of all the bad movies inspired by them. And Tarantino’s worthless PULP FICTION was possibly the most influential film of the 90s. But only a fool would rank Tarantino higher than Bergman.

BILLE AUGUSTPELLE THE CONQUERORDANIEL BERGMANSUNDAY'S CHILDRENLIV ULLMANNFAITHLESS(Writer: Ingmar Bergman)*Ingmar Bergman gave up filmmaking after FANNY AND ALEXANDER and turned to writing and Theater. He continued making TV films, and a few of them, like AFTER THE REHEARSAL, were released in American theaters. Since the 80s, Bergman preferred to write screenplays for others to direct. BEST INTENTIONS was directed by Bille August, and FAITHLESS and PRIVATE CONFESSIONS were treated by Liv Ullmann. Fittingly enough, Bergman’s son Daniel directed SUNDAY’S CHILDREN, Bergman’s remembrance of his childhood with his loving but harshly stern father. If the Lutheran minister in FANNY AND ALEXANDER was Bergman spitting on his father’s grave, the nuanced love/hate portrait of the father in SUNDAY’S CHILDREN was Bergman’s attempt to come to terms with his father. And FAITHLESS, a confession of Bergman’s own failures as a man, was perhaps, a kind of indirect forgiveness of his father. Bergman, who railed against his father’s repressiveness, abused his freedom to destroy the lives of others. So, in the end, who was he to judge?

One reason Bergman gave up filmmaking(at least major productions for the big screen) was due to age. Filmmaking was stressful, especially for a perfectionist like Bergman. But perhaps the other reason had something to do with his need to examine his childhood and the story of his parents. The material was possibly too painful and difficult for Bergman to handle openly. He could sit down and write it down in the form of novels or screenplays, but the stress of directing the lives of his parents and his younger self on a movie set in full view of others might have been too much. And maybe he couldn’t be ‘fair’ with the material due to lifelong grudges. So, why not have others direct what might called the Parental Triology: BEST INTENTIONS, SUNDAY’S CHILDREN, and PRIVATE CONFESSIONS? Bille August’s work is cinematically the most impressive, but I prefer the natural modes of SUNDAY’S CHILDREN and PRIVATE CONFESSIONS.

Bergman became a great director beginning in the mid-50s with films like EVENING OF THE JESTERS(aka SAWDUST AND TINSEL), but there was loss(spontaneity) as well as gain(mastery). For this reason, I generally prefer the films he wrote but were directed by others. EVENING OF THE JESTERS, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, SEVENTH SEAL, and PERSONA are greater works than TORMENT(Bergman’s first filmed screenplay by another director), but TORMENT feels less expressively tormented. Ironically, Bergman, who railed against the repressiveness of social traditions and conventions, was one of the biggest control-freaks in cinema. The problem of SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT is it has no ‘problems’. It is so perfectly self-enclosed that it’s almost like Bergman playing with toys with all by himself. It lacks the feeling of life in Renoir’s THE RULES OF THE GAME. Ophuls and Mizoguchi were also control freaks, but at least their flowing cameras lent the images a hypnotic sensuality. Bergman’s visual strategy was more like that of a scientist poring through a microscope or a professor fixing a cold stare on his nervous students. Thus, there’s a kind of claustrophobic feeling about Bergman’s films. Bergman was a superb director of actors, but this was part of the problem in some of his films: The gloom and doom seemed less the characters' own than overcast clouds hanging over them at Bergman’s behest(as if a creative predestination forbids them from finding meaning and happiness). If the Ed Harris character tries to make everything happy-and-nice for Truman(Jim Carrey), it’s as though Bergman excessively darkened the world for his characters inside the Bergman Show, as if everyone had to share his angst about the meaning of life. Especially beginning in the mid 50s, Bergman’s characters, despite the superb performances, seem less like individuals living their own lives than hapless prisoners trapped in the Bergmanesque universe.

Contrast them to the woman in PRIVATE CONFESSIONS(directed by Ullmann), based loosely on Bergman’s mother. She is trapped in an unhappy marriage, not in the auteur’s conceit of the human condition; she is a person in the world, not a figment in someone's mind. Bergman’s best works feature filmmaking craft and creativity way beyond those of Ullmann(who’s no slouch either), but ‘better filmmaking’ can get in the way of the stories and characters. PRIVATE CONFESSIONS is spare but not severe. It’s told simply, but it’s this simpleness that allows the characters to come alive and tell their own tales. Because Bergman, as much a man of the Theater as of cinema, was so invested in delving into his characters, his cinematic control-freak mastery wasn’t always to his creative advantage. He created compelling characters but imprisoned them within walls of his private angst no less forbidding that the walls of the Lutheran minister in FANNY & ALEXANDER. This was less a problem with Ozu, Kubrick, or Bresson, whose films were more archetype-centric than character-driven.

There is great consistency in the quality and vision of Bergman, but that was also a limitation. Because Bergman’s films often featured trapped lives within trapped expression, it was like a case of double claustrophobia--also the problem of Michael Haneke. Bergman’s early films are rightly considered as minor works — and his later screenplays directed by other filmmakers may be less impressive in terms of ‘auteur’ filmmaking — , but they are fuller in life.

KENJI MIZOGUCHI
THE LOYAL 47 RONIN**
LIFE OF OHARU*
UGETSU**
A GEISHA SANSHO THE BAILIFF*CHIKAMATSU MONOGATARI(aka CRUCIFIED LOVERS)*

WOMAN IN THE RUMOR*

TALES OF THE TAIRA CLAN(aka TAIRA CLAN SAGA)*

STREET OF SHAMEBefore cinephiles in the West were exposed to a broader range of Japanese cinema, the big three were Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu. It was really with the DVD and internet that many of us gained fuller access to what Japanese cinema has to offer. Though the new breed of Japanese filmmakers in the 60s made their mark internationally, even most cinephiles in the West--even up to the 90s--tended to think, based on availability, that other than the Big Three, only a handful of Japanese directors--Nagisa Oshima, Shohei Imamura, Kon Ichikawa, Masaki Kobayashi, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Mikio Naruse, etc--really mattered. It was only belatedly that many of us became aware of other notable talents such as Seijun Suzuki, Yasuzo Masumura, and many others. Though the Big Three may well deserve their special place at the peak, Japanese cinema hasn't been a case of few giants on top and dwarfs at the bottom.

Of the Big Three, the main debate--at least people who care about such things--concerned who was greater: Mizoguchi or Kurosawa? The origin of this debate can be traced back to the French critics of the 50s when Kurosawa came of prominence with films such as RASHOMON, IKIRU, SEVEN SAMURAI, and THRONE OF BLOOD. For starters, French love to argue about everything. It's like the French guys in APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX screaming 'communist!' and 'socialist!' The most sensible thing would have been to see the debate as one of apples and oranges, but French critics couldn't resist drawing battle lines--and this eventually affect some Americans as well, especially the fans of Andrew Sarris whose preference of Mizoguchi over Kurosawa paralleled his championing Rossellini over DeSica.

To the best of my knowledge, most French critics preferred Mizoguchi--and later Ozu and Naruse--over Kurosawa. To the French, Mizoguchi was more authentically Japanese, more of an acquired taste requiring finer taste, and more of an exotic artist but minus the overt exoticism worn on the sleeve as presumably was the case with Kurosawa. It also didn't help that Kurosawa's films appealed to Americans and were inspired to some extent by American Westerns. The French could appreciate Hollywood as Hollywood but preferred a Japanese cinema that was distinct and unique, and they found such qualities more in the works of Mizoguchi. Andre Bazin entered this debate by pouring a mixture of water and gasoline to the fire. He praised both artists, and said a man who can only appreciate Mizoguchi is blind in one eye but a man who prefers Kurosawa to Mizoguchi is blind in both eyes.
Though overstated perhaps, but Bazin had a point. It takes a finer sensibility to appreciate Mizoguchi, and the rewards may be greater. Kurosawa's cinema is more immediately powerful--especially with the fuming intensity of Mifune and the almost 3D effect of telephoto lunges of the camera--, but the meaning is to be found in the drama and action. When Kurosawa slows down or goes into still mode, his films can seem stilted and static. Mizoguchi, in contrast, developed a uniquely graceful mastery of cinema. You can sense something in the air even when nothing happens. And if Kurosawa went for bold cuts and wipes--and a wide-eyed and roaming camera--to accentuate shifts in time, place, and emotions, Mizoguchi could create new universes of existence and emotions with the slightest movements of the camera. Though Tai Chi is Chinese than Japanese, Mizoguchi was like the Tai Chi film artist. He didn't need to hit hard or make wild gestures to demonstrate his unity with the forces animating the human heart and the world.
In that way, he was the greatest Japanese filmmaker ever, and possibly one of the top ten greatest filmmakers 'of all time'. Kurosawa himself said Mizoguchi was Japan's greatest director. Even so, Mizoguchi could never have directed SEVEN SAMURAI, YOJIMBO, and HIGH AND LOW, anymore than Kurosawa could ever have directed THE LOYAL 47 RONIN and UGETSU.

John Simon had much praise for Kurosawa and Ozu but complained that Mizoguchi was 'vastly overrated'. Andrew Sarris said of Simon that he was the 'greatest film critic of the 19th century'. This is both true and false. In a way, people immersed in 19th century literature and arts would likely appreciate Mizoguchi for watching his films require the kind of patience involved in reading novels and staring at paintings--and listening to classical music. The problem wasn't so much Simon's alleged 19th century sensibility as his impatient temperament when it came to certain aspects of film art. Even so, Sarris correctly assessed Simon inability to appreciate cinema as an artwork in its own right than in relation to the other arts.
Simon argued that Mizoguchi's films were too sentimental, even soap opera-like, but this is true only if one focuses on the storyline--often of suffering women. In the treatment, however, there was little that was sappy about Mizoguchi, and if anything, his films were less of a tearjerker than Kurosawa's. When people weep in Kurosawa's films, it's like storm clouds in their hearts have burst open. It's as if Kurosawa endorses and joins in the emotions. Mizoguchi, in contrast, maintained a graceful detachment from the sorrow and grief, creating an effect that, far from being uncaring or unfeeling, was respectful of the unfathomable depths of individual suffering and their place in the 'cosmic'--for lack of a better term--way of things. It was this balancing act between caring(for small lives) and knowing(the grander truth) that made his films so beguilingly beautiful. Though Spielberg is more a student of Kurosawa, his final scene in A.I., the greatest passage he ever directed, owe something to Mizoguchi, knowingly or not.

Given my 'impatient' nature, I've always much preferred Kurosawa over Mizoguchi. (Peckinpah and Leone may be the only directors I enjoy as much or more than Kurosawa.) And I confess I didn't fully appreciate Mizoguchi until later(UGETSU being my first Mizoguchi film in 1985) as I became aware of many more ways to tell stories, convey emotions, and suggest meanings.
That the highest Mizoguchi film in the Sight and Sight Poll is UGETSU at #50 is a not healthy sign of the state of film culture.

Mizoguchi died in 1956, only six years into the second half of the 20th century.
In those years, he made eleven films, among them UGETSU, SANSHO THE BALIFF, CRUCIFIED LOVERS, STREET OF SHAME, WOMAN IN THE RUMOR, TAIRA CLAN SAGA, A GEISHA, and LIFE OF OHARU. In 1954 alone, he made three masterpieces. Mizoguchi's output in those short years arguably makes him the greatest director of the second half of the 20th century--and his works prior to 1950 ranks him among the greatest of the first half of the century. One shudders to think what he might have achieved had he lived another six years, let alone ten or twenty.

FRITZ LANG
SIEGFRIED*
KRIEMHILD'S REVENGE*
METROPOLISM** TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE**
FURYMAN HUNTFilm history has been one of disruptions as well as continuity, and disruptions--at least in the political sense--perhaps had the greatest impact on filmmakers of early German cinema for obvious reasons: the rise of Nazism and WWII. In the early yrs of cinema, Germany was one of the few nations that went toe to toe with Hollywood. And even as the coming of sound movies or talkies babelized world cinema and undermined European films--as America was the biggest market in the world--, Germany still held its own in the early 30s. Given the left-leaning sympathies and/or Jewish identities of many top film talents in Germany, the rise of Hitler inevitably led to rapid decline in quality--despite Goebbels' attempt to shore up the remaining talent with all sorts of favors and rewards. To be sure, not every notable talent left Germany--far from it--, and German cinema during the Nazis was mostly known for mediocrity than awfulness--most films were like second-rate Hollywood genre fantasies. Still, many of the giants of early German cinema were gone for good. Lang and Sternberg were among them--though Sternberg had already secured his niche in Hollywood prior to the Nazi seizure of power.

The general consensus among film scholars used to be that Lang in exile languished with second-rate genre movies at the behest of crass studio moguls who had no use for 'art'. Ironically, one might say he ended up rather like German directors under Nazism churning out predictable genre fare.
But the new breed of French film critics in the 50s centered around Francois Truffaut championed Lang's Hollywood movies as just as remarkable, if not more so, than his German films. I haven't seen enough Lang's Hollywood movies to decide one way or another. What I do know is his Hollywood movies are exceptionally good.
Even so, Lang's reputation as a giant is essentially founded on his German films, especially the Nibelungen Saga(of SIEGFRIED and KRIEMHILD'S REVENGE), M, and TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE. METROPOLIS has moments of greatness that rival anything put on film, but I always found 90% of it pretty tough-going. Lang's Hollywood movies may be peaks among their kind, but Lang's best German films are incomparable in vision, originality, and power. They are works of genius. The mythic grandeur and richness of the Nibelungen Saga have been matched only by EXCALIBUR, 13TH WARRIOR, and handful of other films. M is the best crime thriller and still ahead of its time. As remarkable as Kurosawa's HIGH AND LOW is, it's kid stuff compared to Lang's first sound film. And with TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE, Lang mapped the paranoid mind long before Lynch with MULHOLLAND DR.

Eisenstein's development of the Soviet montage was sheer brilliance, but Lang's best films have gravitas, and they most certainly influenced Eisenstein's ALEXANDER NEVSKY and IVAN THE TERRIBLE, Eisenstein's greatest work. One wonders what the history of cinema would have been like had Nazis not come to power, directors like Lang remained in Germany, and German cinema continued in its early great tradition.
In the case of Billy Wilder, the general impression has been, "Germany's loss was our gain." It's more complicated with Lang. If Wilder had something of Neil Simon's Everyman Appeal that effortlessly transcended cultural barriers and easily translated into the populist mode of Hollywood, Lang was very much steeped in the culture and sensibilities of Europe in both the traditional and modern sense. He was a real artist than just a great entertainer.

CARL THEODOR DREYER
PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC*
VAMPYR**
DAY OF WRATH*
ORDET*
GERTRUDFrom 1928, when Carl Dreyer shook the film world with THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, to 1964, when he directed his last work GERTRUD, Carl Dreyer finished only five films(six if we include TWO FILM, a film he disowned and one I haven't seen; and I know next to nothing of his early silents prior to PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC). In contrast, Ingmar Bergman directed something in the order of 25 or 26 films from 1948 to 1966. Dreyer and Bergman have often been compared--and Bergman often commented on Dreyer--by film scholars, not least because both were Scandinavian directors.

But the crucial difference was Bergman was about clarity whereas Dreyer was about mystery. This isn't to suggest that Bergman found an answer to every question; indeed most of his films end without clear resolution. Even so, the questioning comes into clear focus, almost like a body before a surgeon or a case before judge and jury. Intelligence was the greatest asset for Bergman.
Dreyer relied more on intuition. Though in terms of quality-and-quantity, Bergman is almost impossible to beat, each of Dreyer's major films is greater than anything by Bergman(with the possible exception of PERSONA). The paucity of Dreyer's output can be attributed to any number of reasons. Like Welles, he had problems with financing. There was also the social crises that plagued Europe since WWI. But, it was also Dreyer's temperament and personality. Like Kubrick, he needed lots of time to think/feel deep about what he wanted--and many of these 'ideas' needed time to organically accumulate and take shape of their own accord. Most of his films are not major productions, but it's difficult to think of other films so utterly committed in their vision and unity. In many Bergman films, we see a great mind at work. In Dreyer's films, not just the mind but the totality of the heart and soul.

Though Bergman made films about the historical past as well of his own time, a sense of the present is  always pervasive in his films. Whether it's this day or this night, this year or hundred yrs ago, the sense of the here-and-now comes in to clear focus with almost scalpel-edge sharpness. Bergman may have been appealing to so many serious moviegoers because he did the concentrating for them, i.e. he focused their attention on Important Matters, Symbols, and Issues. In this regard, Bergman had much in common with Fellini and Kurosawa.

Dreyer worked differently. Even in his stories set in the here-and-now, there is always the suggestion of the somewhere else, something else, someone else. Had Bergman made JOAN OF ARC, the main focus might have been on JOAN. But under Dreyer's spell, we are made as aware, if not more, of Joan's longings and memories(even though we only see her in the present) as her dire condition under her tormentors. When the old man in WILD STRAWBERRIES thinks of the past, the past comes clearly into focus as 'the present'. But in Dreyer's films, even the now is never just 'now' and here is never just 'here'. There's a (sixth)sense of something mysterious that surrounds us at all times, regardless of whether we are attuned to it or not.
Thus, there is a fuzzy aura about Dreyer's films, as if characters and places are surrounded by spiritual presences invisible to the eye. Dreyer's VAMPYR derives its power not so much by showing us monsters and vampires as by creating a mood of a place that feels saturated with evil spirits. You don't have to see to believe. After all, the fright one feels in a dark cemetery arises not from what is seen but what is felt. It is the rare artist who can visualize the 'felt'.

There is a ghost story element to all of Dreyer's films, even GERTRUD, with its dry shell of a character, at least on our first impression. But as time passes, our gaze searches for an entry into her locked averted gaze with its secret codes to a private world of wet memories at once crusting into fragility and fossilizing into stone. Like Mizoguchi, Dreyer understood real magic was more a measure of revelation than an act of exhibition, i.e. more an art of perception than in the object of perception. As fine as Cocteau was, his magic mainly consisted of visual tricks that tickled the eye. Same could be said for Kurosawa's DREAMS. But Dreyer's magic, like Mizoguchi's in UGETSU, slipped past the eye and passed into the soul.

ROBERT BRESSON LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST**
A MAN ESCAPED*
PICKPOCKET AU HASARD BALTHASAR**
MOUCHETTE*
UNE FEMME DOUCE LANCELOT OF THE LAKE* L'ARGENT*
Bresson's career can broadly be divided in two, and the transition point roughly coincides with Bresson's switch from b/w to color. Ironically, the stark b/w films offer an element of hope(at least of personal redemption), whereas salvation seems all but impossible in the color ones. Paradoxically, this makes sense in the Bressonian universe for b/w is the 'color' of sainthood. The black-and-white image portrays the world as one of light and darkness. It's a world of stark contrasts buttressed by an uncertain grayness. It's a vision of the world without distractions and diversions, like a spiritual X-ray image of the human condition defined by sinners and saints, many more of the former of course. As God's existence is never a certainty, the life of the saint is a lonely, even a deluded and foolish, one. Above all, a saint must be stubborn, much like a mule. Since mulishness is hardly sociable or advantageous, most saints are products of temperament than of individual choice. The country priest has little in the way of social graces; he's inept in earning the trust and respect of people around him. His personal nature erects a wall between himself and society, but this wall of obstinacy is something he climbs to touch God. The saints of Bresson's films are hardly likable. They are 'losers' who are too stubborn to adapt to the ever-shifting way of social reality, but as such, they are less compromised and more single-hearted, digging away at the hole of 'purity' seen only by their eyes through the barrier of reality.

The major shift in Bresson's vision began with MOUCHETTE, his last b/w film. In many respects, it resembled the earlier films in tone and texture. But Mouchette the gypsy girl seemed incapable of being touched by faith. She wasn't stubborn in sainthood but in rejection of everything, including sainthood, just as everyone rejected her. She wasn't a simple victim for she was born to unlike and to be unliked.
Bresson's earlier characters were outcasts, rejects, or the repressed, but they clung to faith in the cause(MAN ESCAPED), God(Joan and the country priest), and redemption(PICKPOCKET). The donkey of AU HASARD BALTHSAR was unknowing but innocent and pure in its unknowing-ness. All were defined by stubbornness that, however, was moored to a certain spiritual quantity. Mouchette is a harder case for, despite her tough obstinacy, she refuses the possibility of purity/sainthood. She also refuses to be a victim. Thus, she cannot be spiritually saved, and yet in her refusal to accept the hand of faith, one can't help but admire her in some way. Even the manner of her death is her own in her own way. She isn't killed like St. Joan or the donkey. She kills herself but without even the element of self-pity betraying a desire to be grieved by the world. She turns her own suicide into a child's play. Her soul refuses to be saved and commits a mortal sin; she carries stubbornness to its logical end. In one way, she is purer than the saints. Saints may be defined by stubbornness, but they submit to the Higher Being or the Higher Cause. Saints attune their stubbornness to the service of something. They refuse to surrender to the world in their surrender to the higher truth. In contrast, Mouchette won't abandon her stubbornness for anything. In many ways, she is a wretched creature, one for whom we can't feel anything like tenderness, something possible in Bresson's earlier films. But in Mouchette's refusal of even our kindness and sympathy, she possesses a nature more powerful even that of saints. But what is such a nature without direction, without a higher vision or deeper emotion? Mouchette's suicide is her triumph but there's no tragedy because her nature cut ties not only to the world but to truth beyond the world. If the boy in Truffaut's THE WILD CHILD returns to the embrace of civilization, Mouchette rejects everything to the very end. By reasons of social prejudice and her own nature, she lived her own life on the periphery and died her own death all alone, fading from the world as if she'd never existed. Mouchette's manner of death set the template for Bresson's subsequent color films.
Suicide plays a central role in UNE FEMME DOUCE and THE DEVIL PROBABLY. And the character of L'ARGENT also attempts suicide.
With Bresson's shift to color, it was as if his whole outlook changed. World of colors could be a appreciated for its beauty--FOUR NIGHTS OF A DREAMER--, but it isn't one for saints. For most of us, the vibrancy of colors is a happy diversion. For the stubborn of heart, life of the eyes is the death of the soul, especially true in the age of consumerism where bright colors are splashed everywhere, accentuating the most trivial with the seductive imagery.
The modern world is also more permissive, and there can be no saints where permission overrides persecution. What St. Joan was in the Middle Ages, her kind can only be the lost spirit in UNE FEMME DOUCE. For someone of Bresson's stubborn temperament, the meaning of life was in the struggle, and there had been more to struggle for in the past. If Marxists found the bourgeoisie and capitalism too oppressive, Bresson might have found them too easy and tolerant. The modern world was saturated with colors; modern world made life tolerable for most people. The world was no longer for saints but for citizens and consumers. The more life became tolerable, the less it became meaningful. For many people, it was all for the better. But for those individuals born with the mulish souls, the meaning of whose existence was defined against the world, the tolerable was all the less tolerable for persecution had at least lent meaning to their obstinate nature. In persecution, the stubborn had always found the worth of their stubbornness, which could be redeemed into the stuff of sainthood. But in the modern world, the weird and difficult came to be merely tolerated and ignored. As such people were no longer burned at the stake by a misunderstanding world, there is nothing for the mulish but a meaningless existence or death by suicide. Saints are, by nature, pacifistic. Unlike radicals, they don't pick a fight with the world. Instead, saints rely on the world to wage against them out of greed, cruelty, or lack of understanding. But the modern world, equipped with the means to satisfy the wants of most people and with the laws to protect the rights of most people, left the stubborn alone. A tolerant and plentiful world is for the saints what peace is like for warriors. A kind of death. Warriors need wars to fight, and saints need the world to wage war on them. But modern world merely ignored the stubborn as 'losers'.

Bresson was one of a kind. A modernist with a medievalist soul.
There have been many admirers and imitators, but the only lesson of Bresson-ism is one must stubbornly do one's own thing. And imitating him--as Bruno Dumont and others have done--isn't it.

SAM PECKINPAH
RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY*MAJOR DUNDEE*THE WILD BUNCH**
THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE STRAW DOGS*THE GETAWAYPAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KIDTHE KILLER ELITECROSS OF IRON

OSTERMAN WEEKEND THE WILD BUNCH was both Peckinpah's greatest triumph and biggest curse. If not for that film, critics would have been kinder to his later works. But moviegoers hoped for and demanded another film of that caliber, and it simply wasn't in the cards. Because Peckinpah's fame was so closely associated with THE WILD BUNCH, all his subsequent films stood in its shadow. This was fair and unfair. Fair in that we want great filmmakers to keep making great films. Unfair in that a film like THE WILD BUNCH is almost a miracle akin to a royal-straight-flush. While art is a conscious endeavor, no artist, especially in a creative form as complex and multifaceted as cinema, has control over everything nor can he rely on the muse to strike again with the pure light. (This was especially true with Peckinpah, a man of 'film sense' than 'film form'. Unlike the more cerebral Hitchcock, Welles or Kubrick, Peckinpah was an artist of passion and he knew it, which is why he came to depend--tragically or pathetically--so much on drugs and alcohol to recapture the mood that propelled him to make remarkable films such as THE WILD BUNCH and STRAW DOGS.) Therefore, every new Peckinpah film, rather than being judged on its own merit, came to be seen as another disappointment for failing to live up to THE WILD BUNCH. But part of the blame must go to Peckinpah for he had the raw talent and powerful vision to make, under the right circumstances, another film as good. Indeed, had his head been screwed on right, BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA could have been that film, the 'other WILD BUNCH'. Instead, he had to turn every production into a Randall McMurphy vs. Nurse Ratched cage-fight where he, the creative spirit, was presumably the martyr unfairly bound-and-gagged and whipped into submission.

Depending on whom you ask, Peckinpah never made a bad film or made only bad films after THE WILD BUNCH. Upon its release, THE WILD BUNCH had many detractors, but the test of time has established it as one of the indisputably great films of the 60s, a very great decade for cinema. Personally, I tend to agree with the fans of Peckinpah, but I have problems with BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA and CROSS OF IRON. CONVOY isn't much, but then the material was only good for light action-comedy romp. The problems of ALFREDO GARCIA and CROSS OF IRON are more jarring because they had the stuff to become great films. Peckinpah's lack of focus and discipline seriously undermined both. Peckinpah was a poor midwife, and the results were stillborn--or unwitting abortions.

Peckinpah counts as one of the great directors of the 60s and 70s, but his career was really a missed opportunity. He was both too much of an overachiever and underachiever. At his best, he was a great and original revisionist director of genre pictures, but he strained to be a full-blown film artist on the level of Ingmar Bergman. He simply wasn't that kind of 'auteur', and the problems of PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID are illustrative of this.
The other side of him blamed Hollywood for standing in the way of his vision, threw up his hands, and played the underachieving 'whore', treating some of his films without the requisite energy and drive. Unlike Charlie Brown who tried to make the best of a second-rate Christmas Tree, Peckinpah pissed on some of his films. Even so, the piss had a distinct musty odor, and there was a creative auto-pilot within Peckinpah that worked hard at even what his conscious mind worked against. Movie-making was in his blood. In THE WILD BUNCH, the Gorch Brothers are given third-rate Mexican whores to play with, and even though Lyle Gorch feels bitter, he can't help but drink and romp around with the girl, indeed getting soaked to the point of making her his fiance. That was Peckinpah.

FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT 400 BLOWS*
SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER

JULES AND JIM**FAHRENHEIT 451THE WILD CHILDTWO ENGLISH GIRLS*THE STORY OF ADELE H.As one of the leading New Wave directors to emerge in the late 50s, it seemed for a brief spell as though Truffaut could do no wrong. 400 BLOWS was a landmark film, one that melded the warmth of Jean Renoir, poetry of Jean Vigo, and grit of Neo-Realism. Truffaut, a movie junkie, paid homage to the past but packed his first film with distinct quality all his own. Despite his fiery rhetoric as a controversial film critic, Truffaut was no radical or revolutionary as a filmmaker, but none of this mattered as his first three feature films, in their combination of tradition and innovation, convinced the world that anything was possible. It was as though Truffaut transcended all categories. He was seen as a personal artist in the best and truest sense. 400 BLOWS was perhaps the most 'conventional' of the first feature films of the great New Wave directors, but it remains one of the best. Though BREATHLESS may be more important in film history, 400 BLOWS has more lasting value as a work of art. It hasn't dated a day since it was released. It's filled with youth and energy, a sense of boundless possibility. Yet, there's also the mood of sobriety and limitations, of a life, despite its promises, hemmed in by walls and barriers. Some of the obstacles are social and external, some are psychological and internal. Both the boy in 400 BLOWS and Catherine in JULES & JIM wanna play by their own rules, and in doing so, break the rules of society. They are both heroes-and-rebels and renegades-and-outlaws. It was this balance of rebellion and respectability in theme and style that marked Truffaut's first three films. A man of great empathy, he was capable of seeing things from all sides, a quality that he no doubt inherited from Jean Renoir and perhaps Andre Bazin. But just when Truffaut seemed capable of doing just about everything, his career began to falter. He continued to make interesting and even near-great films on occasion, but the rebel side of Truffaut faded, and he became content to be something like the poet-laureate of French Cinema. If some filmmakers burn out, Truffaut's inspiration simmered away in a warm tub. He wanted to be celebrated and loved, and his films became ever more lovable. But such softness--and sometimes soft-headedness--dulled the edge that made his first three films so remarkable. Of the later films, TWO ENGLISH GIRLS might have been a great film if not for the lackluster Jean-Pierre Leaud. STORY OF ADELE H. is solid but lacks style, a fatal flaw. After all, the New Wave had begun essentially as a stylistic movement/experiment. As Truffaut became part of the Establishment, he no longer took chances. At his silliest, he cranked out the Antoine Doinel series like Stallone with the ROCKY franchise. He continued to make good/decent films, but something vital was gone. He won international acclaim with DAY FOR NIGHT, but it was the New Wave resold and re-branded as generic mannerisms. He was showered with prizes for THE LAST METRO, but it was more a celebration of his career and fame--and a self-congratulatory tribute to the myth of the French Resistance--than a film of much artistic merit. Indeed, like most latter-day Fellini films, no one talks about it anymore. But, Truffaut's place in cinema is secure for his first three films and the flawed but inspired revisions of genre films, such as FAHRENHEIT 451, still one of the most memorable sci-fi films in movie history.

FRANK CAPRATHE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YENIT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT*MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON

MEET JOHN DOE* IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE**
Movies have always been a popular art form, but few filmmakers had a knack for populist appeal as Frank Capra did. While 99% of Hollywood films appealed to the masses, relatively few had the magic touch. Capra's movies did, and not for nothing do we speak of a movie being 'Capraesque'. Capra's magic touch has both won him many admirers and many detractors. For better or worse, Capra had an influence on movies such as E.T., BACK TO THE FUTURE, FORREST GUMP, SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, and other monster hits. For the cynically minded, Capra is neither to be praised nor trusted. They contend that if Capra's populism was sincere, he's to be pitied as naive and simple-minded. On the other hand, if his populism was a clever ploy, then he is to be despised for pushing buttons on the suckers.
For myself, MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN and MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON seem, at once, willfully simple-minded and cleverly manipulative. They are well-directed(like everyone else by Capra) and have much to recommend them, but they play on the heartstrings shamelessly, and as such, have something in common with Spielberg's lesser films. Though Spielberg has often mentioned David Lean and John Ford as his inspirations, the magical quality of his films owes more to Capra. WAR HORSE, for example, is an homage to Ford and Lean in form, but its heart is pure Capra--as was the case with THE TERMINAL. And the problem with SCHINDLER'S LIST is it's rather like MR. SMITH GOES TO AUSCHWITZ.
Oddly enough, Capra appears to be one of the main influences on the radical paranoid cynic Oliver Stone, not least in JFK with Kevin Costner in the neo-Mr-Smith role. One wonders to what extent these latter day filmmakers are channeling Capra sincerely or opportunistically, in good faith or bad. Are they carrying the torch of populist redemption or have they stolen the fire of cheap audience manipulation? With a film like GREEN MILE, we know the writer and director were being totally cynical. I mean not even the most willfully naive liberal can believe that a mountain-sized Negro would rather weep over a little white mouse than tear open a white guy's bunghole in prison. Though many Americans find old Capra films too 'naive and childish', the great irony is that many more Americans today go weepy over GREEN MILE, Oprah cult, Obama cult, and the like.
So, there is a negative legacy to Capra-ism. I think Capra partly understood the danger, with the dark side of populism being explored in MEET JOHN DOE and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. (If Spielberg's A.I. is his greatest film, it owes to its contemplation of the darker potential of fairy tales--how they can be concocted and controlled by the powers-that-be to misdirect the innocent, the simple-minded, and the trusting.) MEET JOHN DOE shows how hope can bind but also blind. But a certain crudity of the supporting characters undermine it from being truly great. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is perhaps the most beloved movie--not least as the unofficial Christmas movie--, but the designation has unfortunately discouraged many film critics and scholars from acknowledging its great depth and beauty. It deserves its place in the pantheon with CITIZEN KANE, SEVEN SAMURAI, and 2001 as one of the greatest films.
Perhaps the director who channeled the spirit of Capra in the most meaningful way was Akira Kurosawa. ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY, IKIRU, and RED BEARD certainly owe something to Capra. Kurosawa welded immediacy of neo-realism with the heart of Capra-ism. If Capra, working in Hollywood as a populist director, was compelled to end all his films on a high note, Kurosawa had the freedom to dig deeper, to peer further to the dark side of innocence. Fellini, in films such as THE WHITE SHEIK and NIGHTS OF CABIRIA, probably owes something to Capra as well. Many cinephiles, as would-be sophisticates and hipsters, would rather not dwell on Capra's place in cinema, but he was incontestably one of its giants, even if a lesser giant. He was certainly preferable to the other great populist, the bloated DeMille.
In truth, Capraesqueness is only as good as the director employing it. It can be used to emphasize the need for love, hope, trust, and community in a dark world or it can be used to push the buttons on suckers to rake in millions of bucks. It can be IKIRU or GREEN MILE.

MICHAEL MANN

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

Michael Mann has established himself as one of the major directors of the past three decades, and perhaps his reputation is deserved given his 'artful' reconfiguration of action genres. His contemporaries are Walter Hill and John McTiernan. One might say Mann has the talent of Tony Scott and ambition of Ridley Scott. Or, maybe he has the eye of Ridley Scott and the vision of Tony Scott. (But then, following BLADE RUNNER, Ridley was hardly better than his lesser brother.) Mann's movies certainly look good, and one wonders if Mann's true calling was tailoring. His characters are better suited than conceived. Indeed, watching his films is like window shopping through an array of high end stores. There's something inane and vapid about them, all the more so for Mann's inflated posturing that is often mistaken for philosophical signification. Whether the characters are walking or talking, they seem to be self-consciously narcissistic; they seem to be posing or making grand gestures: consider the bogus ending of HEAT where DeNiro dies stylishly followed by Pacino gazing 'meaningfully' into infinity like he's in some kind of fashion passion play. It's ridiculous and phony, yet it's easy to understand why many are impressed by such shtick. The appeal is no different from the eye-candy sugar high that some get from MADMEN the TV series. Looking good counts for something. Of course, Hollywood has had a long history of making stars look good, but there was a human quality to actors like James Stewart, Cary Grant, and James Mason. And tough guys had grit and personality: consider Cagney, Bogart, Wayne. In contrast, Mann's characters are like mythic heroes whose heads are up in the clouds whispering with the gods while their mortal bodies battle it out in the world of mortals, of course always clad in the proper attire as it'd be uncouth to kill or die in the wrong pair of pants.

For better or worse, Mann has been one of the most influential visual artists since the 1980s, more for his TV show MIAMI VICE than for his movies. I think I watched half an episode of MIAMI VICE once--I couldn't watch any longer lest I might puke--, and the show turned out to be one of those things of which it could be said, "It changed everything." The main appeal of MIAMI VICE wasn't the story, characterizations, themes, etc. It was two guys looking real good and stylish. My initial reluctance to see TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. owed to the suspicion that the once great Friedkin was selling out to get on the slick 80s bandwagon, but Friedkin's masterpiece didn't so much copy the style as run it through a wringer. In contrast, consider Mann's own MANHUNTER--also starring William Peterson--, which is only an empty exercise in style, posturing, and slickness. To be sure, it has a certain appeal and works on its own terms. It's certainly not a bad movie and may even be a good one, but I never much cared for the sterile aesthetics of Mann. Mann's heat is too cool for passion. Compare Mann's heroes in COLLATERAL and PUBLIC ENEMIES with the old school personalities like Cagney(as directed by Raoul Walsh), Muni(as directed by Howard Hawks), or Bogart(as directed by John Huston). Walter Hill conceived of cold/cool killers but not without an element of raw vitality, the stuff of red meat. In contrast, Mann's cinema is dining out at a sushi bar. Even when it's about hoodlums and killers, it's so professional, so yuppie. Compare Mann's use of Cruise or Depp with Hill's use of Bronson in HARD TIMES. Mann's only film with some element of grit was THIEF, his first starring James Caan. (And JERICHO MILE if we include Mann's TV work.) I included THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS because of its astounding action scenes of blood-curdling sexual power. It's one time when Mann's mostly empty mythologizing hacked into the nerve centers of man's violent nature and rendered it thrilling and thunderous than merely smooth and slick. When the men clash in that film over land and women, it really gets primal. Otherwise, it's just a pretty picture with wooden characters.

Mann's main contribution to both TV and cinema is what might be called the nihilo-narcisso-professional-yuppie-fascist style. You can see it everywhere, from MADMEN to AVP(ALIEN VS PREDATOR). It's a variation of Eisenstein's method of 'typage'. In Mann's case, it might called 'hypage' for hype-age. He basically has a bunch of good/cool/hip looking guys and reduces everything about them--not only their looks but their manners and lines--toward serving the iconic image of the narcissistic-sophisticated-professional-fashion-conscious killer. It's action film as iPad or Apple product. One might mention Jean-Pierre Melville as Mann's predecessor, but Melville's control of his material extended beneath the surface. Mann is closer to Bertolucci, another vapid dispenser of pretty pictures for prettiness's sake.
Mann may be a master-forger, but he is still a master at something, which is a hell of lot more than can be said for Tarantino, the true disease of our age.

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
THE GODFATHER**
CONVERSATION THE GODFATHER PT II**
APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX*
PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED

TUCKER Francis Ford Coppola is a strange case in movie history. Almost never has a director who exhibited so much greatness so quickly and so thoroughly lost almost every vestige of it. Not that Coppola failed to make good films after APOCALYPSE NOW. PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, GARDENS OF STONE, and TUCKER are solid. And there are flourishes of talent in BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA as well. But what happened to the director who once made THE GODFATHER movies and APOCALYPSE NOW? All directors eventually fade, and Kurosawa of the 70s and 80s wasn't what he had been in the 50s. Even so, what was great about Kurosawa could still be glimpsed in DERSU UZALA, KAGEMUSHA, RAN, and even DREAMS. Most would agree that Welles's greatest films are CITIZEN KANE and MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. However, even lesser Welles films such as MR. ARKADIN and THE TRIAL could only have been made by a great master. Fellini's decline in the mid 60s and thereafter was steep and embarrassing, but Fellini made more than his share of great films in the 50s and early 60s before going stale.
In contrast, Coppola made only three great films: THE GODFATHER, THE GODFATHER PART II, and APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX. Some might mention THE CONVERSATION, but it's provocative at best and pales next to the best paranoid political thrillers of the 70s.
Granted, Coppola's great 70s films are awesome enough to establish him firmly in the canon, but what happened afterwards? One explanation is that he burned out, but this excuse has been made all too often in cinema. I don't think that was the case. Fellini, for example, didn't so much burn out as inhale his own hot air--and surrounded himself with an entourage of yes-men who praised everything he did. A burn-out case should have had no energy to keep making movies. But Fellini and Coppola were still brimming with energy to make more movies. And they attained the means to pretty much do as they pleased. They were likely more spoiled than burnt out. They lost their sense of balance and direction.
In the case of Coppola, the problem began with APOCALYPSE NOW. Though an impressive feat, it is half great, half ridiculous--even awful. Even so, it has enough great stuff to carry it through. If REDUX version is preferable to the original, it's because, paradoxically enough, it feels shorter even though it's longer. A long drive with rest stops takes longer but is easier on the body than one without. The problem with the original theatrical version is that, after the helicopter attack sequence, it is one long continuous morbid journey into darkness. And when we finally meet Kurtz, it's darkness upon darkness. The additional scenes to REDUX aren't necessarily good, but they offer some lightness to balance out the darkness. They also humanize the characters, making them out to be something more than personality types.

Though APOCALYPSE NOW took a considerable toll on Coppola, it also energized him. He overcame a great ordeal, and the result was much lauded and became a media event/sensation. The trouble began soon afterwards with Coppola's turn to unfettered personal filmmaking. One of the most oft-heard cultural narratives would have us believe that the 70s had been all about personal filmmaking whereas 80s brought back the studio system. But in Coppola's case, his greatest successes, THE GODFATHER movies, were the product of Coppola working for the studio, whereas his two biggest failures, ONE FROM THE HEART and RUMBLE FISH, both made in the 80s, were his most personal projects. Coppola has often mentioned the latter two as the ones he's most proud of. But, they are awful, even excruciating.
So, the problem was not that Coppola burned out or didn't get to do what he wanted. The problem was the opposite. He got to have all the toys and candies, and what it revealed was the empty cavities of his imagination.
Coppola was at his best as a director of other people's visions. THE GODFATHER was the gangster fantasy of Mario Puzo, and John Milius wrote APOCALYPSE NOW. Coppola, as writer, certainly improved things on both films, but Coppola was incapable of originating a great vision of his own. When he got the chance, the result was, at best, the somewhat interesting--THE CONVERSATION--, and, at worst, something as dreary and senseless as ONE FROM THE HEART and RUMBLE FISH. Coppola as auteur director thought that filmmaking was all about bravura directorial one-up-man-ship. ONE FROM THE HEART and RUMBLE FISH are frenetically (over)loaded with all sorts of effects, but they cannot mask the fact that the stories are flat, characters are cardboard, and/or the music/performances are terrible.
And judging by THE OUTSIDERS and BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, one must also question Coppola's sense of proportion. THE OUTSIDERS might have made a decent gritty film about a youth gang, but Coppola pumped it into a teenage greaser GONE WITH THE WIND. It's like turning a Eddie Cochran song into an opera. And BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA is way over the top, also garish and tawdry. As for THE GODFATHER PART III, the less said of it the better.
Even so, there's PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED with a beautifully heartfelt performance by Kathleen Turner, maybe her best. And TUCKER, though self-serving and self-reverential in conflating Coppola's travails with those of the misunderstood titular hero, is a good old-fashioned romp celebrating American freedom and ingenuity. Both movies show little sign of greatness, but very-good-ness is always preferable to the phony would-be-greatness of some of Coppola's later self-indulgences.

LUCHINO VISCONTI
OSSESSIONE

LA TERRA TREMA*
SENSO*

ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS THE LEOPARD**THE DAMNEDLUDWIGTHE INNOCENT

ANDREI TARKOVSKY
ANDREI RUBLEV**
SOLARIS*STALKER** MASAKI KOBAYASHI
HUMAN CONDITION I: NO GREATER LOVE
HUMAN CONDITION II: ROAD TO ETERNITY*
HUMAN CONDITION III: A SOLDIER'S PRAYER*
SEPPUKU (aka Harakiri)**
KWAIDAN*
REBELLION(aka Samurai Rebellion)STANLEY KUBRICK
THE KILLER'S KISS THE KILLING*
PATHS OF GLORY*
SPARTACUS LOLITA**
DR. STRANGELOVE*
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY**
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE*
BARRY LYNDON**
THE SHINING*
FULL METAL JACKET*EYES WIDE SHUT*ROBERT ALTMAN McCABE AND MRS. MILLER*
NASHVILLE*
JEAN-LUC GODARD
BREATHLESS (aka Out of Breath)*LES CARABINIERSA BAND OF OUTSIDERS (aka A Band Apart)*A MARRIED WOMAN ALPHAVILLE**
MASCULIN FEMININ*
TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HERFIRST NAME CARMEN STEVEN SPIELBERG
JAWS*
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KINDRAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK*
EMPIRE OF THE SUN
JURASSIC PARK*
SCHINDLER'S LIST
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN*
A.I.**
MINORITY REPORTCATCH ME IF YOU CANINDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL*
THE ADVENTURES OF TIN TIN*

GEORGE LUCAS
THX 1138**
AMERICAN GRAFFITISTAR WARSSTAR WARS: ATTACK OF THE CLONES*
GILLO PONTECORVO
KAPO*
BATTLE OF ALGIERS**
BURN!LENI RIEFENSTAHL
TRIUMPH OF THE WILL OLYMPIAD*
MARTIN SCORSESE
MEAN STREETS*
TAXI DRIVER*
RAGING BULL*
THE KING OF COMEDYAFTER HOURS GOODFELLAS**
AGE OF INNOCENCE
CASINO**
KUNDUN
SHUTTER ISLAND DAVID MAMET
HOUSE OF GAMES*
HOMICIDE**
THE SPANISH PRISONERWINSLOW BOY

SPARTANJAMES FOLEYGLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (Writer: David Mamet. Director: James Foley)*
SERGIO LEONE
FISTFUL OF DOLLARSFOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE* THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY**
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST**
DUCK YOU SUCKER*ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA**
DAVID CRONENBERG
RABID VIDEODROME*
DEAD RINGERS*
eXistenZ*
SPIDERHISTORY OF VIOLENCEANDREI KONCHALOVSKY
SIBERIADE**
RUNAWAY TRAINSHY PEOPLE

MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI
IL GRIDO*
L'AVVENTURA*
LA NOTTETHE ECLIPSE* BLOW-UP*
ZABRISKIE POINT
FEDERICO FELLINI
WHITE SHEIK*
I VITELLONI**
LA STRADA
IL BIDONENIGHTS OF CABIRIALA DOLCE VITA8 1/2** TOBY DAMMIT (from Spirits of the Dead)*
JOHN BOORMANPOINT BLANK* DELIVERANCE*
ZARDOZEXCALIBUR*HOPE AND GLORYTHE GENERALDAVID LEAN
IN WHICH WE SERVE(co-directed by Noel Coward)

THIS HAPPY BREED

BLITHE SPIRIT

BRIEF ENCOUNTER(Writer: Noel Coward)*
GREAT EXPECTATIONS*OLIVER TWIST

THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAILAWRENCE OF ARABIA*DOCTOR ZHIVAGO*RYAN'S DAUGHTERA PASSAGE TO INDIA

HAL ASHBYTHE LANDLORD HAROLD AND MAUDE* THE LAST DETAIL*
DAVID LYNCH
ERASERHEAD**
STRAIGHT STORY MULHOLLAND DR.** WILLIAM FRIEDKIN
FRENCH CONNECTION*
THE EXORCIST*SORCERERTO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.* OLIVER STONEPLATOONBORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULYHEAVEN AND EARTH*NIXON*ALEXANDERHOWARD HAWKSSERGEANT YORKRED RIVER*LINA WERTMULLERLOVE AND ANARCHYSWEPT AWAY* SEVEN BEAUTIES**LUIS BUNUELUN CHIEN ANDALOU* LOS OLVIDADOS** EL* DEATH IN THE GARDEN* NAZARIN* VIRIDIANAEXTERMINATING ANGEL* SIMON OF THE DESERT*THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIREFRANTISEK VLACIL WHITE DOVE MARKETA LAZAROVA** VALLEY OF THE BEES* MIKLOS JANCSO ROUND UP*RED AND THE WHITE** ELECTRA, MY LOVE*ANDREJ WAJDAKANALMAN OF MARBLE*DANTON*KATYN*SERGEI PARAJANOVSHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS*COLOR OF POMEGRANATES**JAN TROELLHERE'S YOUR LIFE**EMIGRANTSTHE NEW LAND FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE*HAMSUN*PIER PAOLO PASOLINIACCATONE*GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW*ARABIAN NIGHTSJOHN McTIERNAN13th WARRIOR*THOMAS CROWN AFFAIRROMAN POLANSKITWO MEN AND A WARDROBE*KNIFE IN THE WATER*CUL DE SAC

THE TENANTCHINATOWN**TESS*RICHARD LESTERA HARD DAY'S NIGHTROBIN AND MARIANJOHN SCHLESINGERMIDNIGHT COWBOY**CHRIS MARKERLA JETEE**LE JOLI MAISAN SOLEIL*ALAIN RESNAISNIGHT AND FOG*HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR*MURIEL**PROVIDENCE

NO SMOKINGMIKE NICHOLSTHE GRADUATE*CARNAL KNOWLEDGEWOODY ALLENTAKE THE MONEY AND RUN*SLEEPER*LOVE AND DEATH*BROADWAY DANNY ROSE*CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORSMANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY

SIDNEY LUMETLONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHTDOG DAY AFTERNOON*PRINCE OF THE CITY*QUENTIN TARANTINORESERVOIR DOGS*GILLES MIMOUNIL'APPARTEMENT**JACQUES TATIMON ONCLEPLAYTIME**PETER WEIR
YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY*MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLDNAGISA OSHIMAMERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE*GOHATTO(aka Taboo)*JONATHAN DEMMECITIZENS BANDMELVIN AND HOWARD*SOMETHING WILD*JOHN FRANKENHEIMERTHE BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZTHE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE**THE TRAINTHE ICEMAN COMETHFRENCH CONNECTION IIKON ICHIKAWABURMESE HARPENJO(aka The Temple of the Golden Pavillion)FIRES ON THE PLAIN*ODD OBSESSION(aka The Key)REVENGE OF A KABUKI ACTOR(aka An Actor's Revenge)*TOKYO OLYMPIAD*MAKIOKA SISTERS(aka Light Snowfall)**CAROL REEDODD MAN OUT

OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS*THE FALLEN IDOLTHE THIRD MAN**OUR MAN IN HAVANA*GEORGE ROMERONIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD*THE DIARY OF THE DEADHIROSHI TESHIGAHARAPITFALL*WOMAN IN THE DUNES*FACE OF ANOTHER**RIKYUCHARLIE CHAPLINTHE GOLD RUSH*CITY LIGHTS*MODERN TIMES*THE GREAT DICTATOR*MONSIEUR VERDOUX*JACQUES RIVETTESECRET DEFENSE*D.W. GRIFFITHBIRTH OF A NATION*INTOLERANCE*CLAUDE CHABROLLE BEAU SERGELES COUSINS*THIS MAN MUST DIECOLOR OF LIESERIC ROHMERMY NIGHT AT MAUDTHE LADY AND THE DUKE*SHOHEI IMAMURAPIGS AND BATTLESHIPS*PORNOGRAPHERSINSECT WOMAN*INTENTIONS OF MURDER*PROFOUND DESIRE OF THE GODS**VENGEANCE IS MINE*EIJANAIKA

BALLAD OF NARAYAMA*DR. AKAGIBERTRAND TAVERNIERTHE JUDGE AND THE ASSASSIN*
SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY*LIFE AND NOTHING BUT*L627DADDY NOSTALGIEISTVAN SZABOTHE FATHER*LOVE FILMMEPHISTOSUNSHINE*JOHN CASSAVETESSHADOWSFACES*HUSBANDS**WERNER HERZOGAGUIRRE THE WRATH OF GOD*FITZCARRALDOCOBRA VERDE

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I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG

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13 CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ONE THING

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