A Top-five on Film
This piece was commissioned for an entertainment-rankings site.
The Five Most Influential Films of All Time
No, this isn't one of them.
I feel a bit like Moses writing this, as though the words should be
graven at the top of large stone tablets. But, I shall take up the
mantle of mouthpiece of the gods of film and lay down the law.
Now, the following may not be THE BEST nor MOST ENTERTAINING films ever made (although I enjoy them all). These are the films that have most influenced the way movies are made, raised our expectations and changed our ways of thinking.
That said, these are the films: watch them, learn them. They are their own reward, will impress your friends and loved ones with your knowledge of them, and you may just find a new favorite.
Citizen Kane by, Orson Welles - Don’t groan, you have heard it before but with good reason. This is the film equivalent of The Great American Novel. A large story, full of the intrigue of a great but flawed American; Kane is the film every movie wants to be when it grows up. Technically, using tricks such as placing the camera below the floor-boards, bold lighting, off-kilter angles and matte screens to turn small rooms into crowd scenes, Gregg Toland’s cinematography changed forever how movies look. Meanwhile, Scorsese and Tarantino would never have had a chance without this film’s ground-breaking use of “overlapping dialogue” that has characters speaking over one another as people do in real life. Most importantly, however, Kane introduced the idea of the director as the auteur, a stylist, responsible for every aspect the film that bears his unique mark. Welles’s career may have been stifled, but the films he left bear his very large personality stamp, and every young film-maker since has tried to fill the void he left.
The Seven Samurai by, Akira Kurosawa - John Ford made The Western as a genre, Kurosawa took up the banner, trading six-shooters for Samurai swords and then the West returned the favor. All of Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti” Westerns were directly based on Kurosawa’s films and techniques, while the classic The Magnificent Seven is a direct adaptation. Kurosawa presents complex, sometimes morally ambiguous characters, and pits them against a large canvass of war and strife, creating a film that is full of fear, anger, love, grief, violence and social commentary—and makes a damn fun time of it all. Kurosawa, quite simply, is the Shakespeare of film: full of the stuff humanity is made of from the wormiest clown to proud, flawed heroes, and makes it all so damned fun! This film also just happens to boast one of the most intricate, influential and exciting final battle-scenes of all time.
2001: A Space Odyssey, by Stanley Kubrick - Classic Kubrick "Man dehumanized by ____," in this case his own technology, this film legitimatized the science- fiction genre, while boldly going where no film had gone before in the realm of special-effects. Paving the way for Star Wars and other effects-blockbusters, nearly every frame of this film exhibits some breakthrough in special-effects technology, set in motion by yet another inimitable Kubrick-controlled score. At the same time, 2001 gives a prescient look into a future where humanity lives in a sterilized, antibacterial, corporate-controlled, soulless environment, drinking vegetables from little boxes. Meanwhile the most “human” of all the characters is the computer HAL, demonstrating the price we pay in our common humanity for our technological achievements while reveling in the beauty that technology can create. Guarenteed you'll never think of chess, hear "The Blue Danube Waltz," or quite trust your computer ever again after wittnessing this film.
M by, Fritz Lang - For all of you looking for a Steven Spielberg film on this list, here is their grand-daddy. Made in 1931, just as the technology for sound film was being explored by artists and storytellers, this proto-Silence of the Lambs thriller/crime drama alerts us to the presence of the child-killer and impending horror by giving him a musical theme. The idea of using a theme for characters, such as with the shark in Jaws or for Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies, counts for only one of the innovations made in this eerie, early German film that still successfully chills and entertains today. M also introduced the world to the wonderfully creepy and chilling Peter Lorre -- prototype of all film wierdos in history.
8 ½ by, Federico Fellini - We have Signore Fellini to thank for the character-driven films of directors such as Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese. Instead of the events of a filmmaker’s nervous breakdown directing the plot, his inner-life and fantasies drive, fill and make the story. Woody Allen lifts images directly from this film in his early works such as What’s New, Pussycat? Martin Scorsese takes the concept farther by constructing films whose plots turn entirely on their characters' motivations and desires. Look to Travis Bickle’s lonely, angry desire to connect to others in Taxi Driver, or Ray Liotta’s famously tweaked character in Goodfellas as examples. These characters determine their own—and thereby the film’s—destiny, for good or ill, and all thanks to this Italian masterpiece of wit, irony, beauty and madness. And what self-styled artist of any type cannot help but sympathize with put-upon, isolated, egoist that is Marcello Mastrioanni's "Guido?"
This list seems to suggest that all the great and influential films were made ages ago by folks of whom you may have never heard. But there are great filmmakers at work today making movies that will echo into the future.
Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy will be considered just such a breakthrough. Part of the genius of these films lies in the balance struck between the computer-generated and the man made. Aside from its Hellenic “film that launched a thousand knock-offs” effect, the techniques used in combining an actor’s performance and computer-generated imagery in the character of Gollum have been adapted to astounding effect in Beowulf, and more recently in Avatar. Moreover, what 2001 did for science-fiction, LOTR did for fantasy and monster films by raising them to a level of art that can speak of universal subjects while entertaining the trilogy’s millions of fans the world over.
So, now that the pronouncements have been made law, there will be no more worshipping the golden calf of mediocrity.
Don’t you have some movies to watch?
*Author's note: Though we sought desperately for a way to include a David Lean film in this post, being bound to the "five most influential," my apologies to Mr. Lean, but D.W. Griffith invented the epic, and we didn't include him because he was a racist bastard, as many noted historians have said.
Now, the following may not be THE BEST nor MOST ENTERTAINING films ever made (although I enjoy them all). These are the films that have most influenced the way movies are made, raised our expectations and changed our ways of thinking.
That said, these are the films: watch them, learn them. They are their own reward, will impress your friends and loved ones with your knowledge of them, and you may just find a new favorite.
Citizen Kane by, Orson Welles - Don’t groan, you have heard it before but with good reason. This is the film equivalent of The Great American Novel. A large story, full of the intrigue of a great but flawed American; Kane is the film every movie wants to be when it grows up. Technically, using tricks such as placing the camera below the floor-boards, bold lighting, off-kilter angles and matte screens to turn small rooms into crowd scenes, Gregg Toland’s cinematography changed forever how movies look. Meanwhile, Scorsese and Tarantino would never have had a chance without this film’s ground-breaking use of “overlapping dialogue” that has characters speaking over one another as people do in real life. Most importantly, however, Kane introduced the idea of the director as the auteur, a stylist, responsible for every aspect the film that bears his unique mark. Welles’s career may have been stifled, but the films he left bear his very large personality stamp, and every young film-maker since has tried to fill the void he left.
The Seven Samurai by, Akira Kurosawa - John Ford made The Western as a genre, Kurosawa took up the banner, trading six-shooters for Samurai swords and then the West returned the favor. All of Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti” Westerns were directly based on Kurosawa’s films and techniques, while the classic The Magnificent Seven is a direct adaptation. Kurosawa presents complex, sometimes morally ambiguous characters, and pits them against a large canvass of war and strife, creating a film that is full of fear, anger, love, grief, violence and social commentary—and makes a damn fun time of it all. Kurosawa, quite simply, is the Shakespeare of film: full of the stuff humanity is made of from the wormiest clown to proud, flawed heroes, and makes it all so damned fun! This film also just happens to boast one of the most intricate, influential and exciting final battle-scenes of all time.
2001: A Space Odyssey, by Stanley Kubrick - Classic Kubrick "Man dehumanized by ____," in this case his own technology, this film legitimatized the science- fiction genre, while boldly going where no film had gone before in the realm of special-effects. Paving the way for Star Wars and other effects-blockbusters, nearly every frame of this film exhibits some breakthrough in special-effects technology, set in motion by yet another inimitable Kubrick-controlled score. At the same time, 2001 gives a prescient look into a future where humanity lives in a sterilized, antibacterial, corporate-controlled, soulless environment, drinking vegetables from little boxes. Meanwhile the most “human” of all the characters is the computer HAL, demonstrating the price we pay in our common humanity for our technological achievements while reveling in the beauty that technology can create. Guarenteed you'll never think of chess, hear "The Blue Danube Waltz," or quite trust your computer ever again after wittnessing this film.
M by, Fritz Lang - For all of you looking for a Steven Spielberg film on this list, here is their grand-daddy. Made in 1931, just as the technology for sound film was being explored by artists and storytellers, this proto-Silence of the Lambs thriller/crime drama alerts us to the presence of the child-killer and impending horror by giving him a musical theme. The idea of using a theme for characters, such as with the shark in Jaws or for Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies, counts for only one of the innovations made in this eerie, early German film that still successfully chills and entertains today. M also introduced the world to the wonderfully creepy and chilling Peter Lorre -- prototype of all film wierdos in history.
8 ½ by, Federico Fellini - We have Signore Fellini to thank for the character-driven films of directors such as Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese. Instead of the events of a filmmaker’s nervous breakdown directing the plot, his inner-life and fantasies drive, fill and make the story. Woody Allen lifts images directly from this film in his early works such as What’s New, Pussycat? Martin Scorsese takes the concept farther by constructing films whose plots turn entirely on their characters' motivations and desires. Look to Travis Bickle’s lonely, angry desire to connect to others in Taxi Driver, or Ray Liotta’s famously tweaked character in Goodfellas as examples. These characters determine their own—and thereby the film’s—destiny, for good or ill, and all thanks to this Italian masterpiece of wit, irony, beauty and madness. And what self-styled artist of any type cannot help but sympathize with put-upon, isolated, egoist that is Marcello Mastrioanni's "Guido?"
This list seems to suggest that all the great and influential films were made ages ago by folks of whom you may have never heard. But there are great filmmakers at work today making movies that will echo into the future.
Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy will be considered just such a breakthrough. Part of the genius of these films lies in the balance struck between the computer-generated and the man made. Aside from its Hellenic “film that launched a thousand knock-offs” effect, the techniques used in combining an actor’s performance and computer-generated imagery in the character of Gollum have been adapted to astounding effect in Beowulf, and more recently in Avatar. Moreover, what 2001 did for science-fiction, LOTR did for fantasy and monster films by raising them to a level of art that can speak of universal subjects while entertaining the trilogy’s millions of fans the world over.
So, now that the pronouncements have been made law, there will be no more worshipping the golden calf of mediocrity.
Don’t you have some movies to watch?
*Author's note: Though we sought desperately for a way to include a David Lean film in this post, being bound to the "five most influential," my apologies to Mr. Lean, but D.W. Griffith invented the epic, and we didn't include him because he was a racist bastard, as many noted historians have said.