Columbus CityScene columnsThe following column appeared in the September/October 2004 ReelScene column of Columbus CityScene. It is currently unavailable online due to a server malfunction, so I've reprinted it here. ----------------- Listmaking can be considered at once presumptuous and inconsequential. But for the purposes of inclusion it can be an invaluable tool, a means for exposing a cross-section of the arts to a wider audience. In the world of movies, the American Film Institute (AFI) has cornered the market on listmaking. In its various "100 Years…" lists, AFI has championed an almost rigidly bland approach to evaluating cinema (American films only, mostly Hollywood studio films) that largely takes away from the potential good that the lists could be doing. But listmaking can still be beneficial (such as the polling every ten years that Sight and Sound does of leading film critics and directors). It is in this mode that we present this list of 20 under appreciated classics, all of which are available on DVD. 10 Overlooked Classics - 1 to 10 (alphabetically): 1. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975) - Though there are more widely recognized Kubrick films (2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange), it is in this ravishing period drama that Kubrick delivered his finest film. An adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's novel, Barry Lyndon is lushly photographed, delightfully acted and possesses a broad, painterly scope in its visual form. One of the most beautiful color films ever made. 2. The Crazies (George A. Romero, 1973) - Romero is most famous for his Dead trilogy (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead), but this, his third film, is perhaps the most criminally underrated horror film of all time. The story of a rampant virus that induces insanity and rage, The Crazies captures the paranoid mania of the 1970's political climate perfectly. 3. Cross of Iron (Sam Peckinpah, 1977) - Peckinpah's horrific war film was a return to the brutal violence of The Wild Bunch, though more tightly concentrated on the individuals partaking in the violence than that earlier film. Rather than making a blanket statement about war, Cross of Iron focuses on the individual soldier, his harsh existence and the horrors he witnesses daily. It's a wrenching, towering achievement. 4. Family Plot (Alfred Hitchcock, 1976) - Deemed by many to be Hitchcock's least significant film (it was also his last), Family Plot is actually one of the purer examples of Hitchcock's extremely assured command of the medium of cinema. A witty, delightful romp, Family Plot deals with criminals who work so hard to make money illegally, they never stop to think that it might be easier to just earn it the old-fashioned way. A breezy, spirited lark. 5. Fat City (John Huston, 1972) - John Huston was one of those old school Hollywood directors who became much more interesting toward the end of his career. Fat City, a grim and dire trip into a grimy underworld, is the best example of this. Almost in direct opposition to early Huston films like The African Queen, The Misfits and Key Largo (all relatively tame and safe and vastly inferior to Fat City), this film found the aging director at his most fearless. 6. King Creole (Michael Curtiz, 1958) - If there was ever proof that Elvis Presley had what it took to be a full-fledged actor, King Creole is it. Without a doubt the finest film Presley made, it's also the best film that celebrated Hollywood director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, Captain Blood) made. Shot in stark black and white, King Creole is a "real" film, not just a thrown together music video like so many other Presley pictures. Here we see an Elvis full of charisma and a daring, swaggering aura that anchors the film, while letting loose during the dynamic musical numbers. 7. The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1983) - Robert DeNiro stars as the pathetically obsessed Rupert Pupkin, a loner who worships the TV star Jerry Langford (a marvelous Jerry Lewis). Rupert proceeds to harass, stalk and finally kidnap the talk show host, only to gain a kind of freak celebrity himself upon his capture. Prefiguring contemporary reality television nearly 20 years before the medium's peak, The King of Comedy is a frazzled, brilliant comedy of discomfort and celebrity worship. 8. Louisiana Story (Robert J. Flaherty, 1948) - Known for his tendency to cling to the earthiness of early 1900s' life, Flaherty broke with form in this film to throw a nod toward the growing mechanization of contemporary society. Ever the elegant formalist, Flaherty utilizes vital, beautifully photographed footage of an oil derrick to juxtapose the story of primitive America. 9. Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin, 1947) - Chaplin's masterpiece was greeted upon its original release with controversy and derision and was ultimately pulled from release. It's almost certainly Chaplin's most challenging film, a wry, witty, and often bleak rumination on crime. The story of a man who marries wealthy women then murders them for their insurance money, Monsieur Verdoux is another in a line of late-career films by great directors that failed to find an appropriately appreciative audience. 10. One-Eyed
Jacks (Marlon Brando, 1961) - Few people know that the greatest American
actor in history was also the director of one of the most original and
engaging Westerns the cinema has ever seen. Concerned with the career
of two bank robbers (Brando and Karl Malden), One-Eyed Jacks is surprisingly
bleak for the period and genre it was born in, and Brando, along with
his smoldering performance, proves a formidable presence behind the lens.
One-Eyed Jacks remains one of the genre's darkest, most complex entries. |