Friday, 27 July 2018

Some films that had a big impact on my view of cinema

For the uninitiated - this is like the game of Kho kho where someone lists his/her list of 10 movies that changed his/her life and asks you to do the same. The problem is that for the first time in life I have realised that 10 is such a small number!! I will have to list at least 100-150 to do justice to all the great films out there. So, I will cheat and add more. Promise less and deliver more!!

So here are ten(?) movies which, in some way or the other, have managed to stay with me. Not so much as change my life, but these films helped me escape it. I was stunned/awed/gobsmacked/moved by the artistry of these. In some way or the other these films changed my idea of what a cinema is and what a cinema is supposed to do.

Not including RGV's Sarkar, Hrishikesh Mukherjee,Anurag kashyap, Upendra, Puttanna kanagal and other Indian greats as we are already well aware of those.

1. Memento and every other film of Nolan(Well, before you call me a Nolantard let me exclude The Dark Knight rises)!!

2. Judgement at Nuremberg - Any time anybody recommends 12 Angry men to me I thank them by recommending this in return!

3. Miller's Crossing - Heights of Coen brothers' madness. The way the characters were etched and the way the dialogues are written is worth studying. Coens could have filled Quotable quote sections of at least ten copies of Reader's Digest with the dialogues they wrote.

4. Watch Lock,Stock and 2 smoking barrels and you will get the heights of Guy Ritchie's madness!! Totally changed my views on using the camera, editing and background music.

4. No Man's Land .

5. Saving Private Ryan and Artificial Intelligence by Steven Spielberg

6. Ran by Akira Korosawa. Others with same emotional intensity -Hotel Rwanda, Bicycle thieves, Umberto D

7. Aguirre the wrath of God - Hypnotic and mesmerising work of ART. As a buy one get one free offer I will recommend movies by the master Theo Angelopulos - A landscape in the mist, Weeping meadows, eternity and day.

8. Hero by Zhang Yimou - Every frame a painting!! That reminds me of Days of Heaven by Terrence Mallick and that in turn reminds me of Spring,Summer,Fall,WInter,Spring by Kim ki Duk !!

9. Cinema of Iran - Children of Heaven, Song of the sparrows, The cyclist, Kandahar

10. Cinema of Jeane Pierre Jeunet - Amelie, Delicatessen.

Try watching everything by these directors:

  1. Billy Wilder
  2. Preston Sturges
  3. Charlie Chaplin
  4. Buster Keaton
  5. Orson Welles
  6. John Huston
  7. Fritz Lang
  8. John Ford
  9. Ernst Lubitsch
  10. Alfred Hitchcock
  11. John Ford
  12. William Wyler
  13. Don Siegel
  14. Stanley Kramer
  15. Vincente Minnelli
  16. Sergio Leone
  17. Franklin J. Schaffner
  18. George Roy Hill
  19. Martin Scorsese
  20. Stanley Kubrick
  21. Brian De Palma
  22. Sidney Lumet
  23. Francis Ford Coppola
  24. Clint Eastwood
  25. Werner Herzog
  26. John McTiernan
  27. Steven Spielberg
  28. James Cameron
  29. Ridley Scott
  30. Christopher Nolan
  31. Tony Scott
  32. Coen Brothers
  33. Michael Mann
  34. Terry Gilliam
  35. Paul Verhoeven
  36. Mel Gibson
  37. M. Night Shyamalan
  38. Wolfgang Petersen
  39. David Mamet
  40. David Fincher
  41. Alejandro G. Iñárritu
  42. Joon-ho Bong
  43. Quentin Tarantino
  44. Jee-woon Kim
  45. Jean Pierre Jeunet
  46. Johnnie To
  47. Majid Majidi
  48. Mohsen Makmalbaf

No comments:

Post a Comment