Equus (1977)
When 17-year old Alan Strang blinds six horses with a metal spike, psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Richard Burton) investigates at the request of a court magistrate.
After a series of intense therapy sessions, Alan reveals he worships horses as the manifestation of the divine. When a girl took him to the stables to consummate their relationship, he felt his beloved horses watching and judging him. Ashamed, he lashed out in anger.
Burton is electric in the opening and closing monologues as he talks about the ways our desire to worship the divine manifests itself. Alan’s relationship with horses is taboo and reprehensible, but we often find examples of revered people of faith acting outside the mainstream of acceptable behavior. Despite Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of his son, we hold him as a supreme example of faith.
Dysart sees this paradoxical leap of faith as integral to the human experience and worries his professional work is undermining it. Echoing themes from A Clockwork Orange, Dysart worries his attempts to “cure” Alan will remove the passion and spark which makes him unique.
Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics (1911)
Winsor McCay created Little Nemo in 1905 in a comic strip for the New York Herald, and the techniques he developed to tell the story of Nemo’s adventures in Slumberland would soon become standard.
This adaptation, one of the earliest animated films, is not particularly sophisticated, but holds up fairly well in its 110th decade.
Out of the Past (1947)
When Private investigator Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) finds Whit Sterling’s (Kirk Douglas) missing girlfriend, Kathie Moffat, in Acapulco, they fall in love and run away together.
When Jeff’s old partner, Jack Fisher, finds them, Kathie disappears. Jeff assumes a new identity and lives a quiet life until he’s summoned to meet with Whit once again.
Robert Mitchum is the perfect noir actor because he looks like he’s already had two drinks before the scene begins.
From the late 1940s into the 1970s, Kirk Douglas was one of the premiere actors in Hollywood, but his formal style fell out of favor with the advent of the more naturalistic approach favored by Brando and Dean.
One of the first American authors to write hardboiled fiction, James M. Cain’s work laid the foundation for the film noir genre which dominated movie theaters following the second World War.
The techniques Jacques Tournier perfected in low budget films for RKO Pictures such as Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943) helped him create this atmospheric film which Roger Ebert called “the greatest cigarette smoking movie.” We may not understand what’s happening or who’s double-crossing who, but we enjoy watching it happen.
Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906)
Anticipating the later anarchic work of Max Fleischer and Warner Brothers by at least twenty years, this early animated film by James Stuart Blackton highlights cinema’s early obsession with its own artificiality.
It’s not particularly sophisticated, but possesses an inventive playfulness.
Mr. Flip (1909)
As numerous women reject the advances of the lecherous Mr. Flip, their rejections get more and more physical, culminating with a pie in his face.
Believed to be the first filmed instance of the now cliché gag, it amuses me to think audiences watching this film were surprised by Flip’s comeuppance.
In another amusing anecdote, star Ben Turpin allegedly took out an insurance policy on his cross eyes because he considered the feature central to his comedy.
Days of Heaven (1978)
Terrence Malick’s second major film contains many of what would become his defining characteristics: it’s slow and plodding, beautifully composed, and filled with Biblical allusions.
After Bill (Richard Gere) kills his boss, he flees with his girlfriend, Abby, and her sister, Linda, to the Texas panhandle and takes a job on a large farm.
When Bill learns the wealthy owner of the farmer is dying, he schemes for Abby to marry the farmer so they can inherit his money, but his plans are complicated when the farmer recovers and Abby falls in love with him.
Composed like a series of paintings, this muted soap opera infused version of the story of Abraham and Sarah may be the most beautiful Malick film
The Fat and the Lean Wrestling Match (1900)
In the early days of cinema, while the rest of the world’s filmmakers were acting more or less like amateur documentarians, Georges Méliès was pushing the boundaries and capabilities of his craft to explore what a camera could do.
His background as a magician fueled an interest in how a camera could be used to trick an audience. As a result, his films are more interesting than the simple slice of life films of the Lumiére brothers and Edison Studios.
Méliès’s pervasive sense of humor and energy still radiates one hundred and fifteen years later in less than ten minute bursts, prefiguring Vine and YouTube. Four generations later we’ve come full circle.
Adaptation. (2002)
It’s a loose adaptation of Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief, a non-fiction account of the arrest of John Laroche for poaching rare plants in Florida.
Calling it an adaptation is a sleight of hand by Jonze and frequent collaborator Charlie Kaufman. It’s more like an interpretation; freely adding fictional elements to Orlean’s non-fiction work.
Kaufmann is a consistently inventive screenwriter. From Being John Malkovich (1999), to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), to Synecdoche, New York (2008), his films are hyper post-modern examinations of the fractured reality of 21st century existence.
Kaufmann was hired to adapt The Orchid Thief and, suffering from writer’s block, wrote a screenplay about his struggle, creating a fictional identical twin brother in the process. As a joke, he gave this make-believe brother a co-screenwriting credit, making Donald Kaufmann the first (and only) fictional character to earn an Academy Award nomination.
In an insightful parody of the Hollywood process, Charlie attends a screenwriting seminar led by controversial Hollywood guru, Robert McKee.
Donald suspects Orlean (Meryl Streep) is hiding something, so the brothers follow her to Florida and discover she’s having an affair with Laroche (Chris Cooper). The reason he stole the orchid was because the plant can be used to create a drug which causes fascination. Laroche gave this drug to Orlean and she subsequently developed an obsession with him.
The end of the film is a pastiche of action movie clichés as Orlean and Laroche try to kill the Kaufmanns to protect their secret.
Chris Cooper was a late bloomer with Lone Star (1996), but afterwards exploded with roles in American Beauty (1998), The Patriot (2000), the Bourne movies, Capote (2005), The Town (2010), The Muppets (2011) and Norman Obsorn in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). He deservedly won an Oscar for his work as John Laroche.
Nicholas Cage is talented, but often chooses movies not worthy of his talent and claimed in 2011 to have developed his own style of acting, “Noveau Shamanic.” His dual role as Charlie and Donald Kaufmann, while not likely to change any opinions, is one of his best performances.
Despite only directing four feature films, Spike Jonze has developed a reputation for experiential narrative in films where a secret door provides access to John Malkovich’s mind, or a man falls in love with his phone’s operating system.
The more you pursue the seeming loose ends in this twisted, funny movie, the more you realize Kaufmann and Jonze anticipated your questions and answered them. It’s a perfect film to begin a new millennium, deconstructing the practice of adapting works of art to different mediums.
The Goat (1921)
Notorious murderer “Dead Shot” Dan manipulates Buster into posing for his mug shot. After Dan’s escape, the wanted posters feature innocent Buster’s image, and he becomes a man on the run.
What separates Keaton from his contemporaries is his use of physical humor to advance a story. His pratfalls are not isolated attempts to get a cheap laugh but an integral part of the character he’s creating.
This film showcases his purposeful physicality and serves as a perfect example of a strain of early silent shorts featuring a downtrodden protagonist as the hapless victim of circumstance.
This film demonstrates his ability to push the limitations of the emerging film medium.
House of Ghosts (1908)
Segundo Chomón’s film about three vagrants who stumble upon an abandoned house is short on characterization, but high on frenetic energy and inspired visuals, including an impressive stop motion sequence of a self-setting table.
Autumn Sonata (1978)
In the final film of Ingrid Bergman’s career, she’s plays aging concert pianist, Charlotte opposite Liv Ullman as her estranged daughter Eva.
This tour de force in dysfunctional family relationships doesn’t resort to cheap stunts like the more recent August: Osage County (2013). Charlotte and Eva aren’t cruel people and don’t delight in the misery of others. They made rational, cold-hearted decisions, based on self-interest, which destroyed their family.
Ingmar Bergman’s influence on twentieth century art needn’t be rehashed here. This collaboration with sometime lover Liv Ullman is a searing and raw portrait of unfulfilled family relationship and one of his most accessible films.
Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (1991)
Based on the book by Tom Lewis, this Ken Burns film chronicles the pioneers who shaped the radio industry in the early twentieth century, focusing on three men: Lee de Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong, and David Sarnoff.
It’s a fascinating and unappreciated area of historical interest. Ken Burns was just starting to round into the seminal TV documentarian we all know. Jason Robards was a great choice to narrate. It’s always fun to see how the personalities of individuals impacts the historical record, how their vendettas or grudges have unintended consequences.
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944)
After a wild night at a party for departing soldiers, Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) discovers she’s married (but doesn’t know who her husband is) and pregnant.
Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken), who was deemed unfit for military service, is in love with Trudy and offers to support her, but her father (William Demarest) attempts to thwart their union.
After a series of comic misadventures, the pair wind up together, and Trudy unexpectedly gives birth to sextuplets.
Eddie Bracken gives one of my favorite comedic performances, but the star of the film is writer / director Preston Sturges.
Sturges had a hysterical run in the 1940s, but his dislike of the establishment ran afoul of studio bosses and his career derailed. He pushed against the Hays code and prevailing taboos a little too hard.
This miraculous film is as funny today as it was seventy plus years ago.