My Top Ten Films Of All Time - At Least Back in 1991
Written while attending Louisiana State University and published in the Plaquemine Post South in 1991.
BY: DAVID B. GOURGUES
ARE THESE THE TEN BEST FILMS OF ALL TIME? (At least in 1991)
Every 10 years, Sight & Sound, an England based film magazine, polls the world's film critics for their 10 Best Films of All Time and then publishes a final poll based on these critics' votes. In 1982, the list looked like this:
1. Citizen Kane (U.S.)
2. The Rules of the Game (France)
3. (tie) The Seven Samurai (Japan)
Singin' in the Rain (U.S.)
5. 8 1/2 (Italy)
6. Battleship Potemkin (USSR)
7. (tie) L'Avventura (Italy)
The Magnificent Ambersons (U.S.)
9. (tie) Vertigo (U.S.)
The General (U.S.)
The Searchers (U.S.)
12. (tie) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Great Britain)
Andrei Roublev (USSR)
14. (tie) Greed (U.S.)
Jules and Jim (France)
The Third Man (Great Britain)
Sight & Sound's instructions to the critics were simple: "Personal choices of the films which have seemed most significant or relevant to you, which you have enjoyed or admired most. Ten titles only, in alphabetical order or in order of preference, of films made anywhere, at any time." Listed below are the films that would receive my votes for the Ten Best Films of All Time. My choices are not all based on technique, etc..., but some are just films that have stirred a certain emotion in me and impacted my life in some way. If I were to do this list 10 years or 10 months from now, I am quite sure that it would be completely different.
1. Citizen Kane (1941, Directed by Orson Welles, U.S.)
99% of all the polls I have seen have this film listed as the greatest movie ever made. And it is easy to see why. Orson Welles has created a visual masterpiece, one that seems new and fresh each time I view it. The film spans the life of Charles Foster Kane, a millionaire newspaper tycoon and his rise and fall in society. Last year I had a chance to analyze this film in detail in a film class at LSU and this opportunity just further embedded this film in my mind as a tremendous cinematic triumph.
2. Casablanca (1942, Directed by Michael Curtiz, U.S.)
I could not possibly leave this film off the list. A great love story in every sense, Casablanca is a compelling and beautiful film. With Humphrey Bogart as the tough Rick Blaine, and of course Ingrid Bergman as Blaine's girl, this movie has some of the most memorable characters in the history of motion pictures.
3. Fitzcarroldo (1982, Directed by Werner Herzog, Germany)
I do not expect anyone to have ever heard of this film by the German Director Werner Herzog and I am not real sure it even belongs on a list such as this one. Klaus Kinski, who recently passed away, portrays James Sweeny Fitzgerald, a German aristocrat who has the strange and crazy dream of bringing opera to the depths of the Amazonian Jungle and letting the natives hear the great opera singer Enrico Caruso. The film is flawed and yet powerful at the same time. Herzog has created an epic film. A film that went through a tremendous amount of difficulty to get made. And for me, it was worth it.
4. La Dolce Vita (1959, Directed by Federico Fellini, Italy)
Fellini's film, which translated means The Sweet Life, propelled actor Marcello Mastroianni into superstardom. Portraying a playboy journalist who hangs out with Rome's high society and attracts the most beautiful women in Italy, Mastroianni's character (also named Marcello) is ruined when his friend, who he admires a great deal, commits suicide and then kills his two children. Marcello then quits his profession and pursues a life of pleasure that only leads to feelings of guilt and loneliness, thus dragging him deeper into the depths of despair. La Dolce Vita is a tremendous film and will probably always find its way onto my Top Ten List.
5. The Godfather (1972, Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, U.S.)
Honor. Family. Religion. Three things that the Corleone family will do to protect. The Godfather is more of a dark film than most people realize. Its implications are extremely horrific with violence being the mode to resolve all feuds. The Godfather Part II is probably a better written film, but this movie is remarkable in its deep fascination with the mafia as characters in American history. The scene at the end of the film when Michael Corleone is christening his godchild and the camera flashes to other family leaders being assassinated at Michael's command, is a troubling contrast. These scenes are perhaps some of the best viewed on screen.
6. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Directed by Steven Spielberg, U.S.)
This is probably the most entertaining film ever made. The concept that Spielberg, George Lucas and Phillip Kaufman came up with is fascinating: An archeologist named Indiana Jones and his search for the Ten Commandments. It has action, humor, special effect, good storytelling, etc. basically as close to perfect as you can get.
7. Rear Window (1954, Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, U.S.)
Not considered the best of Hitchcock's films, this one is my favorite, nonetheless. Photographer Jimmy Stewart, confined to a wheelchair with a broken leg, witnesses some unusual events out of his window in the apartment next door. The film is great in the fact that Hitchock gives us a different and unique point of view in which Stewart's character is virtually immobile and contained to view events only from a window.
8. Taxi Driver (1976, Directed by Martin Scorsese, U.S.)
Martin Scorsese is perhaps the finest filmmaker alive today and his 1976 brutal Taxi Driver is a horrific look at self-doubt, violence and possession. This is a hard film to watch -- the violence is so real, it is threatening to the audience, and Robert De Niro, America's finest actor besides Marlon Brando, is purely psychotic as taxi driver-vigilante Travis Bickle.
9. The Third Man (1949, Directed by Carol Reed, Great Britain)
I think if I had to list the best film ever made it would be Carol Reed's The Third Man. The visuals are shot to perfection, and the story has it all. Joseph Cotton plays Holly Martin, a failed writer who journeys to war torn Vienna, where he falls for a woman (Alida Valli) who just so happens still loves the dead Harry Lime (Orson Welles). But Harry is not dead, and even though he treated his girl badly, she still adores him - dead or not. Film critic Roger Ebert called Orson Welles first appearance on screen the greatest entrance in movie history, and I believe him. What a film!
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, Dir. by Stanley Kubrick, Great Britain)
I am still not sure what to think of this film and I do not understand it fully. It broke ground in the special effects department, but that was minor compared to its story. Kubrick's film examined, at least I think it did, man's ultimate question: Where do we come from and why are we here. The film did not answer these questions completely and it did not clear them up for me. It did, however; take me on a spiritual journey that I will never forget.
There you have it. You have probably seen some and never heard of others. You probably like some and hate the rest and disagree with most. And yes Star Wars could probably replace Raiders of the Lost Ark for its impact on cinema, as could Raging Bull replace Taxi Driver for its look at expression through violence and extreme self doubt; and Goodfellas will one day replace The Godfather when it has stood the test of time as probably will Spielberg's Close Encounter of the Third Kind: The Special Edition replace 2001: A Space Odyssey. But all of this is what makes lists such as this one fun.