Screenwriter »

• Armond White and (the other) John Waters have spoken!

  January 10, 2012 @ 7:37 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  A few days ago we paid tribute to one of the great gentlemen of film criticism. J Hoberman, recently let go by the Village Voice, has always been a civilising influence on the medium. Now, we’re going to discuss the strange world of Armond White. Formerly a critic with The New York Press, now attached to something called City Arts, Mr White is, it seems, one of those people who lives to antagonise others. He writes pretty well. He seems to have reasonable depth of knowledge. But his assessment of films is so perverse that one suspects an internal randomiser has been at work. Norbit is some sort of gem. Precious was the “con job of the year”. That sort of thing.

  An African-American, White does spend a lot of time ragging Hollywood and other critics for perceived racism. Fair enough. But he will champion the oddest films dealing with the black experience. We’ve already mentioned Norbit. But he also thought that Spielberg’s pompous, patronising Amistad was the very best film of 1997. Indeed, the man is positively addicted to Mr Spielberg. When he submitted his list of the 10 best films of all time to Sight & Sound 10 years ago, AI: Artificial Intelligence somehow found itself placed at number one. I’m fairly certain that even Mr Spielberg himself thought that a little excessive,

  Why do people bother paying attention to him? Well, in some senses he is the Jeremy Clarkson of film writing: he says frightful things, but the world would seem a poorer place without him. Then again, most decent liberals who have worked with Clarkson (Jo Brand for one) grudgingly admit that, in private, he is an extremely charming fellow. I have never met Mr White, so I cannot comment on his manners, but his public pronouncements — always free of Clarksonian “humour” — do not suggest that he is the warmest fellow on the block. A year ago, Hoberman felt minded to respond to a review in which White suggested that Noah Baumbach’s mother should consider having a “retroactive abortion”. (The director’s parent, Georgia Brown, once wrote for the New Yorker magazine.) Hoberman also detailed various alleged outrages carried out when White was head of the New York Film Critics Circle. Lest I anger the man any further, I will avoid further paraphrasing and point you to Hoberman’s rebuttal.

  I am greatly in favour of critics who buck the trend. By all means tell me that 8 1/2 is vulgar and Tokyo Story is underpowered. The problem is that White’s reviews so stubbornly buck the trend that one can’t help but feel he is having us on. He also seems to go out of his way to start fights with other critics. Jonathan Rosenbaum has been known to snipe at fellow reviewers as well, but his criticism seems much more surely grounded than that of Mr White.

  Anyway, having said all that, I do greatly enjoy White’s annual study of which supposedly under-appreciated  films are better than vaguely similar critics’ favourites. The 2011 edition is another classic of the genre. Some of these inequalities are pretty sound. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is far better than Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (but is that really such a controversial view?). Real Steel is certainly more fun than Moneyball. But Tintin (groan, Spielberg again) superior to The Artist? Attack the Block superior to A Separation? I refuse to rise to the bait, old man.

  For a little less heat, have a glance at John Waters‘s top 10 films of 2011. The director of Pink Flamingos has, as always, leaned towards films with a gay connection. It’s a fun list that reveals a delightfully original temperament. (See the full shebang here.) Waters watchers will, however, be surprised by one omission. John almost always includes the latest Woody Allen film in his list, even if it’s as awful as Cassandra’s Dream. Now, in the year that saw Woody have his biggest hit ever with Midnight in Paris, the old geezer is nowhere to be seen. Okay, so maybe John is also at home to studied perversity. Ooo, you think so do you? No, that’s not what I meant!

  Heres the Waters chart:

  1. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar)

  2. Mildred Pierce (Todd Haynes)

  3. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never

  4. Hadewijch (Bruno Dumont)

  5. Kaboom (Gregg Araki)

  6. If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman)

  7. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

  8. I’m Glad My Mother Is Alive (Claude and Nathan Miller)

  9. We Were Here (David Weissman)

  10. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

• The Dublin Film Critics Circle Honours Drive

  December 23, 2011 @ 1:01 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  Every year, the good people of the Dublin Film Critics Circle meet up to tabulate lists of their favourite films. There’s a good deal of huffing, no little puffing and more agreement than you might suspect. This year, after much redistribution of ballots, the best film ended up going to Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive. It’s a good choice. The picture managed to straddle the mainstream and the fringe with an impressive degree of confidence. From the moment I saw the thing I knew it was destined for cult status.

  Anyway, here is the complete list of results. Savour, fume and so on…

  Best Film

  1. Drive

  2. Black Swan

  3. The Tree of Life

  4. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

  5. Melancholia

  6. Take Shelter

  7. Senna

  8. True Grit

  9. A Separation

  10. Animal Kingdom

  Best Director

  1. Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive

  2. Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

  3. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

  4. Tomas Alfredson, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

  5. Lars von Trier, Melancholia

  6. Martin Scorsese, Hugo

  7. David Michod, Animal Kingdom

  8. Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit

  9. Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin

  10. Takeshi Miike, 13 Assassins

  Best Actress

  1. Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life

  2. Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin

  3. Natalie Portman, Black Swan

  4. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

  5. Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia

  6. Emily Watson, Oranges `and Sunshine

  7. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

  8. Olivia Colman, Tyrannosaur

  9. Jackie Weaver, Animal Kingdom/ Yun Jung-hee, Poetry

  10. Viola Davis, The Help

  Best Actor

  1. Ryan Gosling, Drive

  2. Michael Shannon, Take Shelter

  3. Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

  4. Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

  5. Nick Nolte, Warrior

  6. Brendan Gleeson, The Guard

  7. Aidan Gillen, Treacle Jr

  8. Jeff Bridges, True Grit

  9. Dominic Cooper, The Devil’s Double

  10. Neil Maskell, Kill List/ Peter Mullan, Tyrannosaur

  Best Irish Film

  1. The Guard

  2. Snap

  3. Sensation

  4. Rewind

  5. As If I Am Not There

  6. One Hundred Mornings

  7. Knuckle

  8. The Runway

  9. Between the Canals

  10. Parked

  Best Documentary

  1. Senna

  2. Project Nim

  3. Inside Job

  4. Cave of Forgotten Dreams

  5. Knuckle

  6. Bobby Fischer Against the World

  7. Pina

  8. Page One: Inside The New York Times

  9. TT3D: Closer to the Edge

  10. Tabloid

  Breakthrough

  1. Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life, The Help, Take Shelter

  2. John Michael McDonagh, The Guard

  3. Richard Ayoade, Submarine

  4. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

  5. Carmel Winters, Snap

  6. Asif Kapadia, Senna

  7. Juanita Wilson, As If I Am Not There

  8. Ben Wheatley, Kill List

  9. Paddy Considine, Tyrannosaur/ Justin Kurzel, Snowtown

  10. Stephanie Sigman, Miss Bala

  Best Irish Documentary

  Knuckle

  Domestic Breakthrough

  John Michael McDonagh, The Guard

  As voted for by Daniel Anderson, Tara Brady, Declan Burke, Gavin Burke, George Byrne, Paul Byrne, Ciaran Carty, Donald Clarke, Joe Griffin, Gordon Hayden, Brogen Hayes, Aoife Kelly, Paul Lynch, John Maguire, Roe McDermott, Esther McCarthy, David O’Mahony, Mike Sheridan, Nicola Timmins, Hilary White, Paul Whittington

• Things are better than 10 years ago!

  December 2, 2011 @ 12:01 am | by Donald Clarke

  

  Today, The Ticket publishes our attempt to assess the best and worst of 2011. In a break with normal procedure, we are, this year, inviting Lord and Lady Reader to vote on our choices and thus create some sort of “interactivity”.  We have thus composed one overarching, supposedly definitive top 10 and a series of subsidiary categories. Obviously, your favourite film won’t be on our list and you’ll be attempting to post a stream of invective beneath this entry. Fair enough. You pay our wages. (Unless you never buy the print edition. In which case you should be ashamed of yourself. Ashamed, I say!)

  I would just add a few comments to those made in The Ticket. I first began writing in this organ just over 10 years ago. It has always been a pleasure, but a few months into my placement, I began to wonder if I’d ever be in a position to recommend a mainstream picture. After a mildly golden period for American film in 1999 and 2000, the second year in the millennium proved to be a roaring catastrophe. This was the year of Pearl Harbor,  The Mummy Returns, Glitter and High Heels and Lowlifes. It was the year the repulsive A Beautiful Mind won best picture at the Oscars. I recall that — no joke — I didn’t award four stars to a single mainstream release until October (and that was for the fun, but throwaway, A Knight’s Tale). No year since has been nearly as bad.

  

  Ten years later, we find ourselves with a genuine wealth of fantastic films. Suffice to say, such was the abundance that we couldn’t find space for such excellent pictures as Source Code, True Grit or A Separation in the final 10. Apologies to fans of those pictures and to the bright people who made them.

  It is, however, not all good news. In two categories, we were genuinely struggling to make up the quota. What has become of the comedy sector? The Republic of Ireland is just about the only country in the world where Bridesmaids became (to this point) the most successful picture of the year. It deserves its place in our list. Midnight in Paris was decent late Woody Allen. Submarine and Beginners were very good, but neither was exactly packed with belly laughs. What are we doing including the much reviled Your Highness? Well, we laughed like drains. We like the THC-charged laughs and A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas is, sadly, released too late to figure in the poll.

  The other depressing area is feature animation. Lord alone knows which film is going to win the relevant Oscar next February. We can normally rely on Pixar. But this year, with Cars 2, the studio delivered its first unmitigated dud. The latest from Studio Ghibli, Arrietty, is well worth your time. Tangled was a really nice slash of trad Disney.  But, otherwise, we were stuck with decent, if unremarkable programmers such as Rango, Puss in Boots and Arthur Christmas. My Dog Tulip was really lovely. Sadly, however, almost nobody saw the blasted thing.

  Anyway, enjoy the list and please do find the time to vote. Men died to achieve democracy, you know. Men died! As I understand it, you can also win some sort of prize. See, told you. That didn’t happen in 2001.

• Roger Ebert on the best of 1978.

  August 29, 2011 @ 11:06 pm | by Donald Clarke

  The “From the Vault” strand on Roger Ebert’s website this week offers us a really nice episode of Siskel and Ebert from 1978. It’s the best and worst of the year show. Roger and Gene name two relatively off-centre films as their favourites: Siskel picks the wonderful Straight Time; Ebert sides for the now largely overlooked An Unmarried Woman.

  

  “Have I included enough bosoms, Russ?”

  The most interesting bit of their conversation, however, is the section where — noting that Jaws 2 was the third biggest film of the year — they wonder if the huge blockbusters were going to elbow more interesting films out of the way. Mark Kermode was entertaining a very similar debate in this week’s Observer. Plus ca change. But Siskel and Ebert were really onto something. It is easy to overstate the popular acceptance of Hollywood’s Easy Rider, Raging Bull tendency in the early 1970s. As many people loathed that sensibility as celebrated it. But there is no doubt that it was something of a golden period. You could well argue that it ended in 1978 (or maybe the year before). The success of Jaws and Star Wars really did change the way studios thought. Never again would a picture like The Godfather become the most successful of its year. A vague terror of nuance was setting in.

  It’s also amusing to hear Roger confidently state that Jill Clayburgh was sure to win the Oscar for An Unmarried Woman. As you will be aware, she didn’t. The statuette went to Jane Fonda for the somewhat soapy Coming Home. With that in mind, we declare him a good sport for inviting us to look again at this particular episode. Hooray! The programme offers a real Proustian rush for those of us old enough to be occupying the stalls in that year.

  For the record, Roger’s full top ten for that year was as follows:

  1. An Unmarried Woman (1 and a half thumbs up from Screenwriter)

  2. Days of Heaven (2 thumbs WAY up)

  3. Heart of Glass (2 thumbs up)

  4. Stroszek (2 thumbs WAY up)

  5. Autumn Sonata (2 thumbs WAY up)

  6. Interiors (1 thumb up)

  7. Halloween (2 thumbs WAY up)

  8. Animal House (1 and a half thumbs up)

  9. KIngs of the Road (2 thumbs WAY up)

  10. Superman: The Movie (1 thumb up)

  What about Dawn of the Dead, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, The Tree of Wooden Clogs and Fingers? Well, you can’t have everything.

• When critics and punters clash

  August 17, 2011 @ 5:16 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  No, this is not about Harry Potter (well, not entirely). The efficient review-compilation site Metacritic has just published an interesting article listing those films which ran up the biggest differentials between the aggregate ratings of reviewers and visitors to the site. The chart was divided into two sections: films critics love, but punters were unsure of and films citizens admired, but reviewers couldn’t get along with.

  Not altogether surprisingly, the first list contained a fair few quasi-art-house releases that played in mainstream cinemas. Metacritic visitors were not all that impressed by Sideways, Old Joy or (poor Alexander Payne) About Schmidt. (Come to think of it, I remember a projectionist at a Dublin cinema once telling me that he and his colleagues had christened the latter film “About Shit”.) What is, perhaps, more surprising is that bona fide avant garde flicks — notably Claire Denis’s 35 Shots of Rum and Hsiao-hsien Hou’s Flight of the Red Balloon — actually occupied the top two positions. It’s not as if anybody stumbled into Red Balloon thinking they were getting Anger Management or The Bucket List. Fair dues to the arthouse punters.

  The second list is — for the domestic reader — a little more puzzling. What the heck is Out Cold? The number one film in the chart, Wiki-research tells me, stars Lee Majors and a then-unknown Zach Galifianakis in a tale of snowboarders and their comic discontents. Now, I haven’t seen this 2001 picture (it was not released in these territories). It could well be a masterpiece. But, with a mighty user rating of 9.5, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that some sort of underhand, on-line campaign is at work. If it’s great and I’m libelling the film, please let me know. Other films that never emerged here include Joe Dirt (David Spade in a mullet), How High (Method Man goes to Harvard) and Saving Silverman (Steve Zahn is Steve Zahn). More interesting is the inclusion of Christophe Honoré’s creepy Ma Mére. It’s nice to see that the Isabelle Huppert fans are keeping pundits on their toes.

  To be fair, the Metacritic punters — in the first list, at least — make a fair degree of sense. Cold Mountain really was dreary and The Queen was a superior TV movie. I’ve already droned on about the disparity between citizens’ and critics’ opinions of Lost in Translation. So, we’ll leave that one hanging.

  Glancing at Metacritic’s two lists, one does get a slight sense that the debate still hangs around an ancient perception: critics are too fond of boring “arty” films and don’t pay enough attention to popular crowd pleasers. This may be so. But, in an age where, at the touch of a keyboard, the internet fan can access any number of mainstream-happy pundits, I think it is reasonable for hoity-toity critics to focus on more difficult and more obscure works.

  For the record, if asked for my picks of the most unfairly maligned films — I mean really, appallingly hammered — releases, I would select three underrated gems that nobody could regard as arthouse snooze fests.

  1. Gentlemen Broncos (2009) Metacritic rating — 28

  

  It’s a little unfair to pick a film that wasn’t released here, I know — shame on you, 20th Century Fox — but Jared Hess’s mad comedy is an absolute hoot. True, the antagonist, a terrible fantasy writer. does sound a little like Garth Merenghi. But a good is joke worth repeating.

  2. Strange Wilderness (2009) Metacritic rating — 12

  

  Incredibly chaotic. Apparently filmed when everybody was stoned. But all the funnier for that.

  3. Orphan (2009) Metacritic Rating — 42

  

  One of the greatest of recent horror films, Jaume Collet-Serra’s piece features a last-act reversal of stunning audacity.  With a 42-rating, it wasn’t that badly received, but some of the brickbats were quite extraordinarily fierce. A depraved, worthless piece of filth, apparently.

  Having typed out this list, I am reminded that British and Irish critics were kinder to all three of these films than their American counterparts. Come to think of it, we were also harder on Cold Mountain and the useless The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Make of that what you will. There’s another “blog” post in those particular discrepancies.

• Silly Season 3: Screenwriter’s favourite (ahem) female actors

  August 13, 2011 @ 8:55 pm | by Donald Clarke

  Blah, blah, blah. Once again, we don’t mean “greatest”. We mean “favourite”. This should explain why neither Helen Terry nor Paris Hilton make it in. That said, there are, once again, a few indisputable greats here alongside the Rutherfords and the Ritters. The preponderance of older actors should not be altogether surprising. It takes a while for performers to set in and establish their indisputable greatness. It would not be an altogether terrible idea to prohibit entries from the past decade when assembling any “best of” list. A degree of perspective is useful when assessing such important matters. Cult inclinations argue for the inclusion of Barbara Steele and Ingrid Pitt. A taste for oddballs inclines one towards Beryl Reid and Kathy Burke. But they’ll just have to wait for a less comprehensive category.

  1. BETTE DAVIS (1908-1989)

  

  Absolutely no contest. Many guardians of the golden age argue that Katharine Hepburn belongs in this spot. It’s not an outrageous suggestion. But Davis seems to me to be the more versatile and the more stompingly charismatic. She had the capacity to switch between the epically theatrical and the touchingly intimate with the blink of an enormous eye. And, of course, she was a survivor. One of the biggest stars on the planet through the 1940s, she transformed herself into a master of camp Grand Guignol in the 1960s. Set The Letter alongside Whatever Happened to Baby Jane for firm proof. Here’s the end of the very greatest, blubby melodrama of the Dream Factory’s era of magnificence. It’s Now Voyager. Don’t let’s ask for the moon…

  2. BARBARA STANWYCK (1907-1990)

  

  Cooler than a polar bear in sunglasses, Stanwyck was the master of the sly witty barb. She also did good melodrama in Stella Dallas and top-flight noir in Double Indemnity. Here’s some fantastic disingenuousness from the magnificent The Lady Eve. Dig the cod-melodramatic Wagner on the soundtrack.

  3. KATHARINE HEPBURN (1907-2003)

  

  Obvious, I know. But nobody else has quite that degree of flinty astringency. For somebody so cerebral, she was, perhaps surprisingly, always at her best in comedies. Come to think of it, she was funny even in her serious roles. You can’t beat The Philadelphia Story.

  4. THELMA RITTER (1902-1969)

  

  What do you mean “who?”? Simply the greatest maid, confidante, factotum and grump of her generation. Brilliant in All About Eve, Rear Window and the hilarious Pillow Talk. See above. Sorry about the screwy ratio.

  5. LIV ULLMANN (1938- )

  The voice of Bergman. She doesn’t say much in the great man’s Persona, but her still presence enhances every weird scene.

  6. CATHERINE DENEUVE (1943- )

  

  The spirit of French cinema during the 1960s, Catherine illuminated Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, Belle de Jour and Tristana. But my favourite Deneuve turn remains that in Polanski’s mighty Repulsion.

  7. MARGARET RUTHERFORD (1892-1972)

  

  Even writing her names cheers one up somewhat. Adorned many of the very best British comedies. She won an Oscar for the soapy — but still very enjoyable — The VIPs. Enjoy. Neither Lance Purcival nor Richard Wattis seems impressed.

  8. GLORIA GRAHAME (1923-1981)

  

  Nobody was better at playing damaged women. Check out this great scene from Nicholas Ray’s great In A Lonely Place.

  9. JUDY HOLLIDAY (1921-1965)

  

  Incredibly funny. Her dumb blonde act — from a very smart woman — was surely the inspiration for Diamond Joe Quimby’s girlfriend in The Simpsons. Here’s a great bit from Born Yesterday.

  10. ANNA KARINA (1940- )

  

  A slightly tricky one this. The collectable Karina was really a creation of Jean-Luc Godard. We’ll leave the gender debates for another time and enjoy the most famous scene from JLG’s great Bande à Part. She was equally cool in Vivre sa Vie and Alphaville.

• Silly Season 2: Screenwriter’s favourite male actors

  August 6, 2011 @ 7:15 pm | by Donald Clarke

  Now, first things first. Once again, it is important to stress the word “favourite”. An attempt to objectively assess the “greatest” actors of all time would — despite the impossibility of the task — yield 10 very different personalities. When attempting such a list, one would, for example, feel some sort of compulsion to cover all the bases. We’d better have somebody from the silent era. What about the French? That sort of thing. In constructing this preposterous chart I have merely tried to list the actors that I most enjoy looking at. Please feel free to contribute your own lists.

  The Screenwriter top 10 reveals a bias towards a particular class of urbane character actor. No apologies are issued. Cinema would be a great deal poorer without well-spoken types such as Robert Donat and Alistair Sim. There is also a inclination towards older performers. Indeed, sad to relate, only of of these people seems to be still above ground (and he’s 82). Oh well. This place has always been a haven for old fogies. Turn that music down! Is that a man or a woman? You’re not going out of the house dressed like that, young lady.

  1. ALISTAIR SIM (1900-1976)

  

  A private man from a middle-class Scottish background, Sim somehow managed to combine a certain unearthly moroseness with a surprising degree of warmth. He is the greatest comic actor Britain has ever produced. Only occasionally the lead, he enhanced such classic films as The Belles of St Trinians, An Inspector Calls and Scrooge (the best ever version of A Christmas Carol). The clip here is from one of my very favourite films: The Happiest Days of Your Life. When I get round to doing (thanks Irish Times Stylebook) female actors, Margaret Rutherford will, with dulling inevitability, figure near the top.

  2. GEORGE SANDERS (1906-1972)

  

  Offering an interesting contrast to Sim, George Sanders, one of those Englishman who became absorbed by America, made a virtue of almost never giving into warmth. The lugubrious performer is, without question, the most beguiling of all cinema cads. The story goes that his suicide note — keeping in character to the end — spoke of his terminal boredom with life. He’s great in Rebecca, Roberto Rossellini’s Journey to Italy and — as a beastly children’s author — the superb The Ghost and Mrs Muir. The clip shows him in full flow during All About Eve. I don’t know who the blonde lady on the lower stair is.

  3. CARY GRANT (1904-1986)

  

  A return to the obvious. You might argue that Grant, born in Bristol, always played some version of the same character. So what. Getting that right requires true genius. Here’s a great bit from Bringing Up Baby. “Gay all of a sudden?” Hmm?

  4. PETER LORRE (1904-1964)

  One of those great European actors whose sheer foreignness enlivened Hollywood during its golden period.Here’s a superb clip from the original German version of Fritz Lang’s M. As you are almost certainly aware, he is playing a murderer of children. Chilling.

  5. ROBERT DONAT (1905-1958)

  

  What an incredibly sweet presence Donat had. Apparently that slightly raspy voice resulted from serious asthma. He was smashing in The 39 Steps, The Winslow Boy and Goodbye Mr Chips. If you haven’t seen that last film then look away now. If you have, treasure the saddest of all endings above.

  6. KLAUS KINSKI (1926-1991)

  

  Always mad, always charismatic, always great. We could be clever and pick something that wasn’t by Herzog, but then we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the great monkey scene from Aguirre: Wrath of God. Poor monkey.

  7. SPENCER TRACY (1900-1967)

  

  Tracy could be warm and avuncular, but there was always a hint of simmering discontent beneath the tweedy exterior. Here’s a good bit from — the slightly clunky, but compelling — Inherit the Wind.

  8. JACK LEMMON (1925-2001)

  

  One of the great sad men of cinema. Deserves his place for The Apartment alone. See above.

  9. ERNEST THESIGER (1879-1961)

  

  Not that well known a personality, but an absolute master of the art of applied camp. Check out The Man in the White Suit, The Old Dark House and, of course, Bride of Frankenstein. Have a potato!

  10. MAX VON SYDOW (1929- )

  

  He’s 82 now, but hasn’t Max Von Sydow always been old. He’s great in The Exorcist and Hannah and Her Sisters, but the most entrancing Von Sydow is the one who mutters his way through those great Bergman dramas. The Virgin Spring might be the best of the lot.

• My favourite shot in all cinema

  June 29, 2011 @ 10:52 pm | by Donald Clarke

  Yes, silly season is upon us. It’s the time to draw up ridiculous lists that reduce great works of art into neat, countable entities that can be easily rated by idiots such as your current correspondent. The subject today (more will follow before leaves fall) is the greatest single shot in movie history. Actually, that’s too, too preposterous. The subject is my favourite single shot in movie history. I mean one continuous, unbroken take. Regular readers will not be surprised to hear that my favourite scene is probably the creation of the Bride in the immortal Bride of Frankenstein. But there are no real standout takes in that sequence.

  Purists would bow away from the spectacular. That seems a little austere to me. If we’re going to single out one take let’s focus upon a piece of true bravura film-making. I thought about the mysterious rain shower towards the end of Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Opting for the obvious, one could pick the camera passing through the illuminated sign and down through the skylight in Citizen Kane. In tribute to the recently deceased John Mackenzie, what about Bob Hoskins’s terrible realisation at the close of The Long Good Friday? Didn’t Luis Buñuel do something interesting with an eyeball? (Though, come to think of it, that was all about montage.)

  No. I’ve settled upon Jill McBain’s arrival at Flagstaff in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West. Happily, the sequence is available on YouTube. It begins at about 2′ 7″ into this clip.

  

  If you don’t know the film, Jill, played by the unbelievably charismatic Claudia Cardinale, has just arrived at the station to meet her new husband. Unfortunately, he’s just been killed by Henry Fonda (of all people). So, she is left alone on the platform. She passes through the station office. The camera spies her through a window (a letterbox that rhymes with the wide-screen format) and then rises above the roof as she makes her way into the busy background. Ennio Morricone’s score surges as we see the rough settlement forming itself into a town before our astonished eyes.

  Those purists (damn you) will point out that the success of the shot hangs very much on the untouchable score. So what? We’re assessing the finished article, not the director’s raw vision. But it also triumphs because it expresses the themes of the film in one articulate sweep. Here is civilisation being formed in the most harsh surroundings. Obviously, this horrid little clip gives you no sense of the gorgeous finished article. I’m sure the film will turn up in the IFI again before too long. Until then, content yourself with the excellent DVD package which features a superb commentary from the reliably perceptive Christopher Frayling.

• What’s the worst film of all time?

  April 19, 2011 @ 10:30 pm | by Donald Clarke

  

  It’s not the silly season yet, so don’t take the question too seriously. Obviously, it’s always good fun to attach that title to something that people really love. If I want to annoy students, I generally suggest that the worst film of all time is Fight Club. I don’t suppose I really believe that, but the hollow, posturing, knuckle-headed pretensions of that film do really set my teeth on edge. Yes I know that we are not supposed to take Tyler Durden’s sermons entirely seriously, but the film does still — and Chuck Palahniuk confirmed this to me in person — have something to do with a supposed “crisis in masculinity“. Aww, diddums. Are the poor little menny wenny laid low by several millennia of patriarchal dominance? Let’s have a whip round and, while we’re at, let’s raise some money for distressed millionaires and troubled movie stars. I mean, honestly.

  Where was I? Oh, yeah. Most everyone has their own favourite worst film, but, if yours falls among the bottom 20 of the IMDb voters’ list then you probably need to get out a little more. Here’s the current sh*t parade…

  1.  Dream Well (2009)

  2.  Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)

  3.  Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

  4.  Daniel – Der Zauberer (2004)

  5.  Monster a-Go Go (1965)

  6.  Night Train to Mundo Fine (1966)

  7.  Ben & Arthur (2002)

  8.  Pocket Ninjas (1997)

  9.  The Skydivers (1963)

  10.  The Starfighters (1964)

  11.  Zombie Nation (2004)

  12.  Pledge This! (2006)

  13.  Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag (2007)

  14.  Zaat (1971)

  15.  From Justin to Kelly (2003)

  16.  The Little Fox 2 (2008)

  17.  Too Beautiful (2005)

  18.  Disaster Movie (2008)

  19.  The Final Sacrifice (1990)

  20.  The Hillz (2004)

  Don’t get me wrong. It’s an entertaining chart to peruse. But, over the years, it has become completely taken over by a kind of anti-canon. A series of admittedly terrible films — Manos: The Hand of Fate, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, From Justin to Kelly — have become installed as the trash establishment and, thus, gained a sort of unwanted critical traction. Naming one of these as the worst ever film is a little like naming Citizen Kane as the best. You might be right (after all, how many films are better than Kane?), but the choice doesn’t say much about your capacity for original thought.

  Having said all that, there is always some movement in the chart. I suspect that, just as those involved with independent flicks that need a boost sometimes devote themselves to hitting the “10 stars” button over and over again, the crew, backers and cast of utterly terrible films strive to get their projects to the top (bottom?) of this list.

  Be honest. You’re really intrigued by Dream Well, the current number one. Actually, it does sound fascinating. Apparently, it is a Hungarian high-school comedy that seems to model itself on the likes of Mean Girls. Oh, come on. Don’t tell me that got there by accident. Director Gábor Forgács and his mates must have been working the keyboard night and day. The trailer — identifying it under the alternate title Dream.Net — suggests that it is no worse than its American equivalents.

  

• In Tarantino news…

  January 13, 2011 @ 3:30 pm | by Donald Clarke

  The good people at Dangerous Minds have just dragged out a clip from one of the great unseen debuts. Making Martin Scorsese’s Who’s That Knocking at My Door appear as conspicuous as Avatar, Quentin Tarantino’s My Best Friend’s Birthday has come to be seen as a kind of ghost film. It exists in some nowhere-place — half in and half out of the real world. The truth is that most of the film was destroyed by careless staff in some cheap lab. But a few clips do survive. Here’s quite a lengthy slice. It is certainly interesting to note how fully formed the Tarantino aesthetic already is. All that chatter about pop culture and so on. Have a glance…

  

  In other Quentin news, the great man has released a list of his favourite films of 2010. Here’s the interesting point. Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere is nowhere to be seen. You may remember that Tarantino, an old pal of Coppola Minor’s, got in hot water for handing the top prize at Venice to her soporific flick. Verrrrry interesting (unlike the film).

  Mr T’s (surprisingly conservative) list is as follows:

  1. Toy Story 3

  2. The Social Network

  3. Animal Kingdom

  4. I Am Love

  5. Tangled

  6. True Grit

  7. The Town

  8. Greenberg

  9. Cyrus

  10. Enter the Void

  11. Kick-Ass

  12. Knight and Day

  13. Get Him to the Greek

  14. The Fighter

  15. The King’s Speech

  16. The Kids Are All Right

  17. How to Train Your Dragon

  18. Robin Hood

  19. Amer

  20. Jackass 3-D