5 films to fall in love with cinema (a Filmstack challenge)
Life, death, terror and tenderness.
I write a lot of lists in my notebooks, almost daily. To-do lists, lists of projects, shot lists, shopping lists, lists of people to contact, films to watch, books to read... Lots of lists. It would seem that I love writing lists.
But as soon as anyone asks me to write a list, I pretty much fall apart under the pressure.
And when someone suggested I write my five films in response to Sophie at That Final Scene’s film stack challenge last week, it seemed like a terrible idea.
Her challenge:
What 5 movies would you use to turn someone into a film lover?
Design your perfect 5-movie introduction to cinema.
A pressure list without doubt, for someone who loves cinema like I do.
Maybe it’s because of the endless talk of the death of cinema-going, or the constant stream of piss that comes from the big streamers. Or just me wondering what my daughter will think of films and filmmaking when she’s grown up (how and what I show my daughter is something I think about a lot - there’s a great Ira Sachs list of films he showed his kids that has been very influential). But the idea hasn’t gone away.
So I chose my five films. And choosing them dug up all kinds of feelings about how I fell in love with cinema, why I find it so magical and the films I want to make.
A Matter of Life and Death (Powell & Pressburger).
It’s a good idea to check that the person you are trying to get to fall in love with cinema has a soul, otherwise this might all be pointless. And this film is the perfect test.
It also brings… a playfulness about time and space that is pure cinema; Black-and-white and colour cinematography as expressive tools; A love story; War; Big ideas told in beautiful visual language; A Led Zeppelin inspiration; and a great French accent.
All primers for future cinema love.
Don’t Look Now (Nicholas Roeg)
Sticking with flashes of red, and building on the idea that cinema is not really about story, but about feeling things…
No film has ever made me feel so many things on so many levels. Anguish, horniness, terror, tender beauty - it has it all. It has an exquisite score, unmatched imagery and starts introducing fractured time and editing to our cinema world.
Close Up (Abbas Kiarostami)
We’ve introduced a tenderness and naturalism (Sutherland and Christie play so delicately together in Don’t Look Now), so let’s expand that with one of cinemas greatest humanists.
I’m reading a great book of Conversations with Kiarostami (film book lovers, check this post of filmmakers and their favourite film books)
In the book, Kiarostami describes Close Up
This film is in praise of dreams; it’s a beautiful portrayal of a human being who has reached a dead end but still has a hold of his dreams.
Which is a far superior description than I could give it.
If I’m trying to turn someone into a cinema lover, I want to give them a taste of documentary. A blend of fiction and non-fiction, with the fluid magic of a film that blurs the edges of those two things.
I also want to open up the world through cinema. It’s one of the great things about great cinema - it takes you to a new world. TV does a terrible job in comparison.
Harold & Maude (Hal Ashby)
The shortlist for spot number 4 was so long I almost quit writing the list.
My new cinema lover is in a tender space after love, loss and a blurring of reality. Could I hit them with The American Friend? Daisies? The Gleaners and I? Listen To Britain? Nashville? Sunrise? Hold Me Tight? Fitzcarraldo? Ghost Dog?
In the end, I went for Harold & Maude, because to make someone truly love the form, it needs to have a little of all the wonder of life in it. Which includes humour. And Cat Stevens.
Happy Together (Wong Kar Wai)
Which all leads us to this. The film that made me sure I wanted to a filmmaker. I watched this when I was 19, and travelling around Argentina. I went to the cinema 3 times to see it. And asked the theatre if I could have one of the lobby posters (I carried that poster around for 4 months of travelling, and then left it at a border crossing in the mountains by mistake).
Just to hear the opening chords of Caetano Veloso’s Cucurrucucu Paloma transports me emotionally to a different time and place.
As my test subject can now handle mixed formats and visual metaphor, elliptical time, evocative beauty, fractured heartbreak, striking colour, raw naturalism and expressionistic imagery, then they can tumble into the world of Wong Kar Wai.
I love this film immensely, and a couple of years ago it was playing at the New Beverly on my birthday. I went to see it, alone, to sit and think about time and love and travel and music and beauty, which is the kind of place great cinema can take you.
The thing about this list, and perhaps why I struggle under the pressure of writing them, is that it is absolutely flawed and incomplete and lacking. Hopefully though, after these 5 films our new cinema lover isn’t looking to complete a list, but to start devouring films in theatres, ready to be surprised and delighted and shocked and heartbroken.
Phenomenal picks!! Thank you so much for taking part