490. Wings Of Desire
By sheer coincidence, this film was recommended to me right around the same time that Silver Screen Society chose it for their own month long tribute. So if you want to see more WINGS OF DESIRE inspired art, might I recommend heading over here.
Wim Wender’s poetic WINGS OF DESIRE is a sweepingly romantic film. In a world where angels walk silently among us, bearing witness to our lives, one angel falls in love with a trapeze artist and decides he wants to be a part of the physical world. Yet this central relationship, which constitutes the only real storyline, is just a single thread in the film’s fabric. The rest comprises beautiful black and white aerial shots of Berlin and intimate fragments of people’s thoughts. It’s about the city as a whole, or maybe life as a whole, so much more than any individual characters. And although angels usually aren’t my thing, here they seem to be more of a symbolic device than a spiritual one, which I enjoyed. Peter Falk playing himself along with a performance from Nick Cave were both delightful bonuses.
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Tags: 1980, Germany
542. Antichrist
Full disclaimer: I’m not a big fan of Lars von Trier. Of his films I’ve seen, it seems to be his goal to make me feel as miserable as possible. And the problem is, he’s usually successful. ANTICHRIST tells the story of a couple whose son falls out of a window while they’re making love. The husband, a dubious psychiatrist, suggests that they retreat into the woods to confront his wife’s grief and fears. Let’s just say things get dark from there. The filming is gorgeous with a lot of, well, memorable imagery, and Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg are mesmerizing. There are things in this movie that I never expected or needed to see filmed, but that’s okay. What bothered me wasn’t the shocking violence—it was the moment when the theme changed from grief to the evil of women. I wasn’t going to do an illustration for this, but hey! Let’s draw some cute animals!
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Tags: 2000, Denmark
5. The 400 Blows
In THE 400 BLOWS, François Truffaut’s first feature film and a milestone of the French New Wave, a young, stoic troublemaker named Antoine Doinel is pitted against the world. Even when he tries to do the right thing it tends to go wrong, and he is failed repeatedly by his uncaring teacher, his frustrated parents, and a misguided juvenile justice system. It sounds dark, but THE 400 BLOWS is sincere without being melodramatic. And the serious themes are punctuated by touching montages of friendship and boys-being-boys. What makes it all the more meaningful is knowing that Truffaut’s depiction of a difficult childhood is largely autobiographical. I look forward to seeing more of his alter ego Antoine, who appears in a number of his later films.
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Tags: 1950, France
539. House
What can I say about Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 film HOUSE? The trailer calls it the first fantasy horror film, and I suppose that’s as good a description as any. A schoolgirl named Gorgeous and six friends go to visit her aunt in a large, secluded house, and things just get weird from there. The imagery is something out of a fevered dream: hungry pianos, evil cats, and floating body parts among other things. I love the surreal painted backdrops and bits of frenzied animation, not to mention the humor. The overall effect is more campy than scary, and that’s just my cup of tea.
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Tags: 1970, Japan
Hello friends and fellow Criterion connoisseurs. I have a bit of a milestone coming up—namely, the viewing of my one hundredth Criterion Collection film. (No, I have not yet illustrated one hundred films. Let’s stick to one milestone at a time, here.) I wanted to commemorate this with something special, but I couldn’t choose which unseen masterpiece should receive such a coveted spot. So I’m opening it up to suggestions. Which Criterion title would you consider it a crime for me not to have seen? What do you recommend? I can only choose one film for my hundredth, but I’ll be happy to illustrate anything that’s nominated.
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170. Trouble In Paradise
I already have a particular fondness for pre-1950 witty romantic comedies, so this might be a bit biased. But Ernst Lubitsch’s TROUBLE IN PARADISE is a near flawless film, and certainly among the best of that genre. Gaston and Lily are professional thieves in love with their work and in love with each other. Together they plan to con the perfume manufacturer Madame Colet, never expecting the love triangle that complicates their plan. The dialog is clever and sharp, but the filmmaking is just as clever. I love the montage told from the perspective of various clocks ticking off the minutes, or the shot of two shadows suggestively falling across a bed. (Because it was made pre-code, sexual innuendo abounds.) All three characters are wonderful, the entire film is intelligent and fun, and I enjoyed it start to finish.
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Tags: 1930, United States
488. Howards End
The Schlegel sisters, living in turn of the century England, are independent and compassionate, and capable of befriending anyone. This includes the wealthy Wilcoxes and the decidedly less wealthy Basts, whose lives intertwine (in a way too complex to summarize here) and leave everyone changed. This is one of those films where I read the book first, so I’m afraid I can’t help reviewing it without making comparisons to the source material. Fortunately for HOWARDS END, that works in its favor. Producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory collaborated on a number of E. M. Forster adaptations, a handful of which I’ve seen, and they consistently have a talent for getting at the heart of Forster’s stories. Sure, there are plenty of beautiful period costumes and lush locations. But that’s just window dressing for the characters, their relationships and their lives, that make the narrative powerful and surprisingly contemporary. Of course, a cast that includes Emma Thompson, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Hopkins, and Helena Bonham Carter doesn’t hurt.
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Tags: 1990, United Kingdom
507. Bigger Than Life
James Mason is riveting, frightening, and other adjectives in the 1956 drama from Nicholas Ray, BIGGER THAN LIFE. A well-liked father and teacher, his life is turned upside down when he is diagnosed with a fatal condition, which can be kept in check by a miracle drug that comes with its own consequences. Slowly, as he begins to abuse the drug, he is transformed into something unrecognizable. What makes this film disturbing is not that he becomes a monster, but that it’s a familiar monster. Abusive fathers really do exist, with or without mind-altering drugs, and his family’s acquiescence is all too believable—although I’m sure it was a shocking depiction in the 50s. Aside from Mason’s performance, there are also some brilliantly shot scenes, like the one illustrated below. I generally try not to choose images that Criterion has used for their DVD art, but the tableau of Mason’s shadow looming over his son was too perfectly iconic to pass up.
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Tags: 1950, United States
58. Peeping Tom
The 1960 thriller PEEPING TOM follows shy, soft-spoken Mark—a disturbed cameraman who films women while murdering them, and with the same device. When first released, critics despised the film for its overtones of voyeurism and sexual innuendo, emphasized by suggestive cinematography and a powerful lead performance. Today, it’s those seedy psychological elements that are completely engaging, despite being predictably outdated. I only wish the film had been a bit scarier. It failed to frighten even at its most suspenseful, but it was still worth the ride. This is only the second film I’ve seen by Michael Powell, one of the most represented directors in the collection, and I look forward to seeing more.
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Tags: 1960, United Kingdom
95. All That Heaven Allows
In ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, Jane Wyman plays a widow in a conformist suburban town whose gardener just happens to be Rock Hudson. It should come as no surprise that they eventually fall in love, although it does seem to surprise everyone else in the film, from her catty neighbors to her selfish children. Not only is Rock Hudson much younger than her, but he also leads a modest bohemian lifestyle in the woods, and doesn’t believe in the opinions of others, a lesson that Wyman is slow to learn. The film is straight up melodrama, full of predictable clichés and bordering on the schmaltzy. (One of my favorite scenes is the magical Hudson feeding a deer in the snow!) But the Hollywood sheen masks the social indictment at the heart of the story. And the treatment is so beautiful, with rich colors and careful framing, it made me want to have my own Thoreau moment in the countryside.
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Tags: 1950, United States
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Eric Skillman
