1965 Bonus List: Some Great Movies

1965 blogging, bonus list!

32 Great Movies from 1965

To conclude our festival of 1965, I’ve got a list of recommended movies.  This mini-list is excerpted from the “Doubling the Canon” list (as compiled by participants on the IMDb Classic Film message board) combined with the 2006 list from the They Shoot Pictures Don’t They? list of 1,000 great films.

The They Shoot Pictures list is a 1,000-movie canon of great films;  the “Doubling the Canon” list adds an additional 1,000 movies to the canon.  And now I’m excerpting the 1965 movies.

32 Great Movies from 1965

(Combined list, with They Shoot Pictures picks in caps and Doubling the Canon picks in lower case, all presented in alphabetical order.)

ALPHAVILLE (ALPHAVILLE, UNE ETRANGE AVENTURE DE LEMMY CAUTION) / Jean-Luc Godard

ART OF VISION, THE / Stan Brakhage

Bonheur, Le / Agnès Varda

Bunny Lake Is Missing / Otto Preminger

Charlie Brown Christmas, A / Bill Melendez

CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT / Orson Welles

Darling / John Schlesinger

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO / David Lean

Dot and the Line, The: A Romance in Lower Mathematics / Chuck Jones

Film / Alan Schneider

Fists in the Pocket (I Pugni in tasca) / Marco Bellocchio

For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più) / Sergio Leone

Guide / Vijay Anand, Tad Danielewski

Hand, The (Ruka) / Jirí Trnka

High Wind in Jamaica, A / Alexander Mackendrick

Hill, The / Sidney Lumet

JULIET OF THE SPIRITS (GIULIETTA DEGLI SPIRITI) / Federico Fellini

LOVES OF A BLONDE (LASKY JEDNE PLAVOVLASKY) / Milos Forman

NOT RECONCILED (NICHT VERSÖHNT ODER ES HILFT NUR GEWALT WO GEWALT HERRSCHT) / Jean-Marie Straub

Now / Santiago Álvarez

Ordinary Fascism (Obyknovennyy fashizm) / Mikhail Romm

PIERROT LE FOU / Jean-Luc Godard

RED BEARD (AKAHIGE) / Akira Kurosawa

REPULSION / Roman Polanski

Sandra (Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa...) / Luchino Visconti

SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT, THE (REKOPIS ZNALEZIONY W SARAGOSSIE) / Wojciech J. Has

Shop On Main Street, The (Obchod na korze) / Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos

Simon of the Desert (Simón del desierto) / Luis Buñuel

SOUND OF MUSIC, THE / Robert Wise

Three (Tri) / Aleksandar Petrovic

Tokyo Olympiad (Tôkyô orimpikku) / Kon Ichikawa

War Game, The / Peter Watkins

Here’s the full They Shoot Pictures list.  And here’s the  “Doubling the Canon” list.  Special thanks to the two masterminds behind these lists: Bill Georgaris who manages They Shoot Pictures and Angel Gonzalez Garcia who now leads the "Doubling the Canon" project.

I created and launched  “Doubling the Canon” project around half a dozen years ago, ran it for a few years, and then handed it off to Angel’s capable hands where it’s flourished since.

© 2012 Lee Price

1965 and James Bond

1965 blogging, part 5 of 5

James Bond opening credits

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I relax by considering possibilities for future series.  I spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  1965. 

First, some suggestions from my Facebook page for some potential 1965 21 Essays material:  Ideas included The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, King Rat, and The Hill (thanks Robert!), Darling (thanks Rosemary!), and The Collector, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Story of a Prostitute, Red Beard, Tattooed Life, Tokyo Olympiad, and Sword of the Beast (thanks Christianne!).  All great suggestions!  While I don’t plan on tackling any of these specific suggested topics, I definitely am looking forward to opportunities to write in-depth about directors Akira Kurosawa and William Wyler, and am intrigued by the possibility of delving into the works of director Seijun Suzuki and author John Le Carre.

And now here’s my fifth 1965 series possibility:  21 essays on James Bond opening credits and their songs.

From the opening credits:  Goldfinger (1964).

I suspect that no one above suggested James Bond because the actual 1965 Bond movie release—Thunderball—signaled something of a drop in franchise quality.  Nevertheless, 1965 was a year dominated by Bond because the series slipped off the screen and onto the radio for the first time.  Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger” was one of the biggest Top 40 hits of the year, creating an expectation that subsequent Bond movies would feature sensual opening credits choreographed to powerful hit pop songs.

My proposal is 21 essays on 21 James Bond opening credits and their songs.  Yes, I realize it’s not technically a 1965 topic but what year would be more appropriate?  In a classic one-two punch, Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones helped make 1965 the year of James Bond, both onscreen and off.

Shout out to Deborah Lipp (internationally respected James Bond expert, Mad Men blogger, and long-term cinephile friend):  Feel free to help out!

This is the last of my official 1965 ideas (with no promises that we’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…) but there’ll be one more bonus entry of great 1965 movies that’s been saved for last.  I hope to post it tomorrow.

Next year(s) up on the random year(s) generator:  1811-1815.  (Coming soon…)

© 2012 Lee Price

1965 and the Beatles

1965 blogging, part 4 of 5

Help!

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I relax by considering possibilities for future series.  I spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  1965. 

So here’s my fourth 1965 series possibility:  21 essays on Help!, Richard Lester’s second movie with the Beatles.

John Lennon in foreground, partial George Harrison behind,
and Ringo in the distance in Help! (1965).

I’ve been resistant to proposing this particular series.  In many ways, I think Help! represents a brief slump for the Beatles as they looked for new direction—a bold direction which would blossom with the release of their album Rubber Soul in December 1965.  There’s so much great music from 1965 by other singers and groups… why go with an inferior Hard Day’s Night retread?

My reasons for embracing Help! are entirely personal, but that’s in keeping with the nature of these 21 Essays series.  I want these essays to be personal.  I was five when Help! was released.  Although I have no idea where or when I saw it, I know that it’s one of my first movie memories.  Then as a teenager, I revisited it at a midnight revival (very, very good memories!).  Finally, as an adult, I experienced a radical Proustian moment revisiting it.  Watching the Beatles cavort on some faraway beach, I suddenly realized how unbelievably young and happy they were (particularly one shot of John Lennon) at that moment of time.  Memories triggered of youth and a sense of time passed—the Beatles as my madeleine.

It’s one of the purposes of 21 Essays to make note of special moments like that.  For all its flaws, Help! has been the right movie at the right time for me on several occasions.  And, seriously, a slump that still produces songs like “Help!” “You’re Going to Lose that Girl,” “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” “The Night Before,” and “Ticket to Ride” has to be considered pretty impressive!

Tomorrow, I’ll propose the last of these 1965 ideas (with no promises that I’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…).    But I’m wide open to other suggestions.  Any ideas for 1965 movies, books, short stories, poems, songs, paintings, or other cultural artifacts that might inspire a good 21 Essays series?

© 2012 Lee Price

1965 and The Hand

1965 blogging, part 3 of 5

Ruka (The Hand)

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I relax by considering possibilities for future series.  I spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  1965. 

So here’s my second 1965 series possibility:  21 essays on Ruka (The Hand), a short animated film by Jiří Trnka.

The Hand tells the artist what he should create in Jiri Trnka's Ruka.

Following fifteen very productive years creating some of the world’s most charming movies, Czech animation genius Jiří Trnka courageously vented his political frustrations in his art.  His final 18-minute short, Ruka (The Hand), is a very personal allegory of the artist versus the totalitarian state.  Trnka’s puppet animation remains as sweet as ever, but the story is bleak and there’s no happy ending.  The artist loses the struggle.  It was Trnka’s last movie and the state predictably attempted to destroy all copies.

While Ruka was Trnka’s favorite of his films and the one that has received the most critical attention, I actually don’t have a real favorite among his films—I love them all, from his Chekhov adaptation Story of the Bass Cello to his Shakespeare puppet feature A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Because of my natural temperament, I probably even slightly prefer his folk tales and literary adaptations.  And yet I know that Ruka deserves to retain its place of honor. After all, it is Trnka’s final testament.

As I cover other years, I’m sure I’ll be mentioning other Trnka films.  He really is a favorite of mine.  And at some point, I’ll have to choose which one will work best as a platform to discuss his art.  Ruka would work, but I’d want to rein the essays back from being too political.  Although Ruka’s political statement is clear and eloquent, it’s the character touches that I love most about it.

Over the next two days, I’ll be proposing some more 1965 ideas (with no promises that I’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…).  But I’m wide open to other suggestions.  Any ideas for 1965 movies, books, short stories, poems, songs, paintings, or other cultural artifacts that might inspire a good 21 Essays series?

© 2012 Lee Price

1965 and Falstaff

1965 blogging, part 2 of 5

Chimes at Midnight

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I relax by considering possibilities for future series.  I spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  1965. 

So here’s my second 1965 series possibility:  21 essays on Chimes at Midnight.

The end of Hotspur from Chimes at Midnight (1965).

Chimes at Midnight has a very secure spot among my all-time favorite movies, frequently making the cut when I’m asked for a top 10 favorites.  Chimes at Midnight was Welles’ third stab at translating Shakespeare to film. His 1948 Macbeth was flawed but interesting, his 1952 Othello was pretty great, and then along came the blow-out masterpiece of Chimes at Midnight in 1965.

Keith Baxter as Prince Hal.

Chimes at Midnight is the story of Falstaff and Prince Hal, stitched together  from passages in Shakespeare’s two Henry IV plays plus little bits from Henry V and The Merry Wives of Windsor.  The relatively unknown actor Keith Baxter masterfully holds the movie’s center as Prince Hal, nimbly and wittily responding to the imposing presences of John Gielgud as King Henry (IV) and Welles as Falstaff.  Most miraculously of all, Welles delivers a nearly wordless action scene for the Battle of Shrewsbury that is cinematically worthy of Shakespeare.

For an Orson Welles movie that’s received considerable critical praise, Chimes at Midnight remains frustratingly unknown.  It’s never received a mainstream video or DVD release in the United States.  My first viewing was of a copy of a Japanese-produced video with Japanese subtitles (thank you, Christianne!).  But even seen in an imperfect presentation, it’s magnificent—my favorite of Welles’ great movies.

My only hesitation at launching into a 21 Essays series is my need for good screen captures.  Ideally, I’d wait until a worthy DVD is released (Criterion?  Please???).  But if time drags on and no DVD comes to market, maybe I’ll just have to make do with whatever I can wrangle up.

Over the next three days, I’ll be proposing some more 1965 ideas (with no promises that I’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…).  But I’m wide open to other suggestions.  Any ideas for 1965 movies, books, short stories, poems, songs, paintings, or other cultural artifacts that might inspire a good 21 Essays series?

© 2012 Lee Price

1965 and Charlie Brown

1965 Blogging, Part 1 of 5
A Charlie Brown Christmas

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I relax by considering possibilities for future series.  I spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  1965. 

So here’s my first 1965 series possibility:  12 essays on A Charlie Brown Christmas, which first aired on CBS on December 9, 1965.

Linus and Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.

Last year for Christmastide (the twelve days of Christmas beginning on December 25 and concluding on twelfth night, the evening of January 5), I ran 12 essays on Christina Rossetti’s lovely poem “In the Bleak Midwinter.”  I don’t have any definite plans for this upcoming Christmastide yet, but I’m always up for an expanded Christmas celebration.  Twelve days with the Peanuts gang could be good winter fun!

It might be fun to be more like Snoopy—to be free to dance on pianos and type novels on a doghouse roof.  Or like Linus—and have the poise to stand at center stage and eloquently share the meaning of Christmas. 

But most days I feel more like Charlie Brown.

On a 21 Essays series on A Charlie Brown Christmas, I could ask the big questions, like “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?” and “How can you say someone is great who’s never had his picture on bubblegum cards?” and “Do innkeeper’s wives have naturally curly hair?”  I could ask the judges to score Snoopy’s awesome ice skating routine.  I could challenge you to imagine a time when studio executives sincerely believed that Vince Guaraldi’s now ubiquitous score would be too sophisticated for a mass audience.  (What WERE they thinking???)

And most of all we could just consider how kids respond to Christmas.  I think kids like this are still with us today.

Over the next four days, I’ll be proposing some more 1965 ideas (with no promises that I’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…).  But I’m wide open to other suggestions.  Any ideas for 1965 movies, books, short stories, poems, songs, paintings, or other cultural artifacts that might inspire a good 21 Essays series?

© 2012 Lee Price