For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

Sometimes as a young filmmaker develops his style and hones his craft, there comes a time when all of the pieces fit perfectly. The script stretches, tight as a drum, with expertly constructed characters and no unnecessary diversions. The actors, from the lead to each supporting role, turn in stellar performances, every gesture or line revealing more about their characters. Finally the direction manages to not only capture the action, but to accentuate it. Everything the director does, from framing to lighting, pushes the film nearer and nearer to perfection, until the viewer wonders, “Could this be this filmmaker’s greatest, most perfect work possible?”

These moments push the popular medium of motion pictures into the realm of art.

One could look at each of the top four films on AFI’s list and see how this sentiment applies, but for #4 Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese’s most uncompromising film of his career, it has particular resonance.

Four years after Taxi Driver, which, though incredible, often has a distant and sometimes inhuman tone to it, Scorsese is able to craft a film that is just as relentless and visually stunning, but also deeply human.

From its slow motion opening shot of Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro) alone in the ring, we understand exactly what Raging Bull is about. This one man bobs and weaves, fighting not with any physical opponent, but with the shadows that live within his head.

That is not to say that La Motta won’t have to face any actual opponents in the ring, but they are ancillary to La Motta’s struggle against himself. When Jake does fight other boxers, the violence is brutal.

Scorsese is unafraid to show the vicious consequences of life in the ring, and yet bathed in black and white these images have both a richness that makes them deeply emotional and a starkness that makes them palatable.

With all of the undeniable strengths of Raging Bull, it is remarkable to consider that that Scorsese was not this project’s champion from the beginning. That job fell to Robert De Niro.

De Niro read La Motta’s biography earlier and saw something in it that he could grab on to. Maybe it was the deep self-inflicted hurt that La Motta had such skill in dispensing upon himself, perhaps it was the arrogance paired with the insecurity that is such a common and violent mix, or it could have been the passion of an explosive young boxer who, against all odds and in spite of his own corrosive limitations, punched his way to his sport’s biggest stage.

Life is not always punctuated by the concussive blasts of the flash bulbs, as you stand victorious over your fallen foe. Most of our lives take place outside of the ring, in preparation, relaxation, or retreat.

As La Motta scraps his way into recognition through his repeated collisions with Sugar Ray Robinson (Johnny Barnes), his marriage to Irma (Lori Anne Flax) falls into disrepair. This is due in no small part to Jake’s obsession with the 15-year-old Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), a local beauty. Vickie is both naïve and experienced, and fits felicitously with Jake’s view of women.

Jake’s marriage to Irma ends, and in 1947, Jake and Vickie are married.

The entire film is shot in beautiful black and white by Michael Chapman. The only exception is the grainy, textured 8mm home movies of Jake, Vicki, and Jake’s brother, Joey (Joe Pesci).

This visual juxtaposition accentuates what has been documented and what is remembered. The documentation has degraded, but we can see the colors of the clothing, the cars, and the people.

The black and white feels almost dream-like in comparison. It sanitizes certain aspects, but heightens other.

There were practical considerations too. In a historical biopic, getting the color of the gloves or trunks right is not a concern in black and white. Nor is the gruesomeness of the bouts.

The black and white allows Scorsese to be uncompromising with Raging Bull. In Taxi Driver, Scorsese famously color corrected the film so that the blood was more orange than red to avoid an X rating. With Raging Bull, Scorsese has made a choice that serves the story and removes the power that the MPAA censors would otherwise have.

The sport of boxing in the 1940s was, to some extent, controlled by the mob, whose handlers kept the best bouts for complicit boxers. La Motta had gone as far as he could on his own. To get a title shot, he had to make a deal with the local boss, Tommy Como (Nicholas Colasanto).

Jake will get a title shot, but first he has to make good on his deal. First, he has to take a dive.

La Motta is a brute in the ring, and an ill-mannered pig outside of it. The only thing he loves is boxing. The only thing that drives him is the chance at a title, and now he has betrayed his own passions and stained the ugly, yet pure pursuit of boxing greatness.

He has sold himself, and taken a dive for the benefit of an inferior boxer. The grief is too much for someone who knows how to take a punch.

When Jake gets the title, it is no longer on his terms. The passion of pursuit subsides, and with the belt in his hands, Jake begins to lose his focus.

As La Motta’s drive to stay in shape and remain competitive wanes, so too does his libido. This only serves to accentuate his insecurity, and suspicions of Vickie’s infidelity.

A man who only understands achievement through violence, La Motta’s verbal accusations quickly escalate beyond that, and to disturbing levels.

Scorsese uses his camera to add to the aggression. He forces us to move with La Motta as he attacks Vickie. The camera pans in synchronized motion as Jake grabs and hits his wife. The effect is dramatic and upsetting.

De Niro’s intensity makes the moment all the more real.

De Niro famously put on weight to play the aging La Motta. 60 pounds over two months is no easy feat, but what I find just as impressive is De Niro’s commitment to his boxing training.

The actor was so focused that he competed in a number of local boxing matches and won a couple of them. La Motta, who helped train De Niro, said that the actor even had the makings of a great boxer.

De Niro definitely looks the part.

When Robinson returns from his military service, he wants a shot at La Motta’s title.

Out of shape and unprepared for Robinson, La Motta cannot hold off his attacks. Scorsese makes the crushing psychological reality of this moment visual through the use of the best zolly shot of all time.

Jake does not go down for Robinson, but is otherwise obliterated. Scorsese just needs one insert to tell us what has become of La Motta’s career.

Rocky showed us what was possible. It made us believe that with hard work and perseverance we could get a shot, and really a shot, regardless of the outcome, was all we needed.

In Raging Bull, four years after Sylvester Stallone’s boxing epic, Scorsese shows us the fractures and pain of our humanity and the results of our slow decay.

After his boxing days are through, Jake indulges himself. He eats, spends his way through all of his money, and philanders. Eventually Vickie leaves him. At the point that this happens, it is an afterthought. There is no fan fare, no pomp. It’s just a car speeding out of a gravel parking lot, leaving Jake in a cloud of dust.

La Motta’s exploits go too far when he gets involved with an under aged girl at his club. Without the money to post bail, Jake is put in prison.

Here in the darkness of his cell, a man who lived like an animal in and out of the boxing ring, a man who was capable of incredible brutality, stands up and punches the wall until he can no longer take the pain. Jake sits on the cot and has the closest thing to a moment of clarity that he is capable of.

Cast in total darkness, Jake yells “Why are you so stupid?” looking briefly at himself. What he finds must be too devastating, because in the next breath he mutters, “Why do you treat me this way? I’m not an animal.”

Again he forces the blame outside, and away from himself. He simply could not bear it if he allowed for the possibility that everything, all the hurt, all of the loss, all of the bruised relationships, even his current incarceration, was his fault.

Once released, La Motta becomes a mockery of a comedian, working dive bars with other has-beens.

The film ends with a fat Robert De Niro playing a fat Jake La Motta reciting Marlon Brando’s speech from On the Waterfront to himself in a mirror.

The irony and cinematic language does not get any thicker or more delicious than this moment. Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront never got his shot because his brother sold him out, but Jake won it all and lost everything because of himself.

So now this obtuse grotesque individual stands in preparation for one of his shows, and shadow boxes. He once again prepares for a bout, and we are back where it all began. Only this time there is no ring, no flashing lights, and no dreamlike slow motion. Now it is a dingy backroom, stark flat lighting, and the camera won’t even move to reframe when La Motta stands and throws fat wheezing punches at no one.

Raging Bull is one of the most beautiful films about ugly people you’ll ever see. Its stark emotional landscape gives it the air of honesty and the appeal of a cautionary tale.

It is funny to think that this film, when it came out in 1980, barely made its money back and almost ended Scorsese’s career. By the end of the 80s it had won almost universal critical praise, and Scorsese finally had a critical and box-office hit with The Color of Money.

Now Raging Bull tops most critics’ lists of the greatest films of all time, including AFI’s list from 1998 and 2007 and Sight and Sound’s 2012 Directors’ Poll.

A stunning achievement that could only come from a passionate artist with little left to lose, and with collaborators that were hell bent on making something remarkable.

Raging Bull will stand the test of time because it speaks to the worst of what is in all of us, and warns us of what any one of us could become.

Up next, #3 Casablanca (1942)

1 Year, 100 Movies #5 Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

1 Year, 100 Movies #6 Gone with the Wind (1939)

1 Year, 100 Movies #7 Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

1 Year, 100 Movies #8 Schindler’s List (1993)

1 Year, 100 Movies #9 Vertigo (1958)

For links to #10-19, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #10 The Wizard of Oz (1939)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

I am sorry I’ve been away from my column 1 Year, 100 Movies for a while. As I near the final few films, there seem to be more interruptions than ever, but I’ll offer no excuses. Instead I will pledge to do my best and get the next four films up in a timelier manner than film #5.

At #5 we meet the final musical on AFI’s list. What makes “Singin’ in the Rain” worthy of such an honored distinction?

It is placed right in the middle of the top ten and is 5 spots ahead of “The Wizard of Oz” and 29 spots above “Snow White,” which I consider partial musicals, or movies that contain music but don’t rely on the songs to further the story. “Singin’ in the Rain” is a stunning 35 spots ahead of the list’s last traditional musical “The Sound of Music,” which only just slipped in to the top 40.

So what is it about “Singin’ in the Rain” that makes it more compelling and more important than “West Side Story” or “Cabaret?” Why is this film, which was met with mediocre reception during its initial release, worthy of an additional five spots, moving it from #10 on the 1998 list to its current position on the revised list?

“Singin’ in the Rain” may not do any single unique thing. It is a film about filmmaking, or more specifically a musical about the making of musicals. “Sullivan’s Travels” was a movie about movies, and it came eleven years earlier.

“Singin’ in the Rain” integrates the songs into the body of the story by focusing on characters that are entertainers. We’ve seen this all the way back at #90 “Swing Time” and more recently in “Cabaret.”

Director Stanley Donen helmed his first directorial feature, “On the Town,” just three years prior to making “Singin’ in the Rain.” It too was a collaboration with co-director Gene Kelly, who was responsible for the choreography and played the male lead in both films.

Since both men had already worked together and had an established rapport, they could go out on a limb. Donen and Kelly could make a musical comedy that explored new territory. It would be a musical comedy about making musical comedies set in the late 1920s during the film industry’s transition to sync sound.

Again we’ve seen this transition to talkies addressed in a previous film, “Sunset Boulevard,” two years before “Singin’ in the Rain” was released, but hopefully by now you can see where this long catalog of the not unique aspects of “Singin’ in the Rain” gets us.

It gets us to a single film that encapsulates a huge spectrum of subject matter tackled by a long list of other films that came before it, and it does so in less than two hours and with some of the most expansive and ambitious song and dance routines ever filmed.

Kelly plays Don Lockwood, a star of the silent era. He, along with costar, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), and fellow vaudevillian, Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor), has been tearing up the silver screen for years, but with the release of “The Jazz Singer” studios now scramble to make sound pictures.

This wouldn’t be a problem, but Lina has the perfect voice for silent film. Tinny and grating, Lina’s voice and career will never make it through the transition to sync dialogue.

Luckily Don meets Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), a young struggling actress who works with an all girls musical group that sings and dances at parties.

As quickly as she appeared, Kathy is gone. Though Don searches, this plucky newcomer is nowhere to be found.

Kathy is the least of Don’s problems. He and Cosmo must turn their latest picture, “The Dueling Cavalier,” a silent melodrama, into a sound picture, and there is the problem of Lina, whom Cosmo refers to as the triple threat. She can’t act, she can’t sing and she can’t dance.

Don frets, but Cosmo reminds him that when all else fails make ‘em laugh.

O’Conner’s performance during “Make ‘Em Laugh” is silly, overt, and wonderful. It is amazing the lengths that O’Connor, himself a former vaudevillian from a family of performers, was willing to go to for what could otherwise be seen as a throwaway number.

This song and accompanying routine doesn’t further the story, and doesn’t feature the star. It is here to cheer Don up, but the acrobatic and comedic feats that O’Connor achieves within this silly little routine make it one of the more memorable in a film filled with memorable musical numbers.

Don stumbles across Kathy performing as background talent in an adjacent soundstage. Though the tabloids continue to write about the entirely fictional love affair between Lina and Don, and the studio encourages the story because it makes for sensational publicity, Don falls for Kathy.

Even during a scene where Don courts Kathy, he does so on a soundstage. The scaffolding that lies beneath the film itself shows through. We are watching a movie that continues to reveal itself as a movie, and movie stars that play movie stars.

As he prepares for the leap to sound, Don visits a speech therapist to help with his diction.

Cosmo and Don both end up having fun at the expense of the diction coach, and here we watch as each layer of characters and collaborators from Cosmo and Don, actors Kelly and O’Connor, to co-directors Kelly and Donen all create a fantastic musical number that pokes fun at the movie biz, while doing what movies do best – entertaining and delighting the viewer.

The production of “The Dueling Cavalier” commences, and as expected Lina is a disaster.

When a test audience screens the picture, the crowd walks out incensed, vowing to never watch another Lockwood and Lamont movie.

With a national release just weeks away, Cosmo, Don and Kathy stay up worrying about what can be done. As night becomes morning, these three performers resort to what they know best, performing, and in doing so, come up with a plan to turn “The Dueling Cavalier” into a musical comedy, “The Dancing Cavalier.”

“Good Mornin’” blurs the line between what is performance and “not real,” and what is “real” within the context of the movie. All three of our main characters break into song with full orchestration. This would normally be seen as a visual and auditory metaphor, but upon the conclusion of the musical number, instead of just acting like they had a moment of dialogue, Cosmo references the song they just sung to come up with a solution for the Lina-problem.

Like architecture that showcases I-beams and other structural elements, Donen is showcasing the structural elements of filmmaking and storytelling to create something wholly unprecedented. It is as if a magician were telling you his secrets as part of the act.

Cosmo proposes that Kathy sing and speak for Lina. With clever dialogue recording and lip-syncing, no one should ever know the difference.

After their all-nighter, and with a plan, but little else, Don returns home in the pouring rain, and gives us perhaps the most iconic musical number ever set to film.

The titular song gets at the subtle melancholy that floats just below the surface of “Singin’ in the Rain” without ever becoming the dominant emotion. The entire process of filmmaking is changing around him and yet Don can’t help but anticipate good things to come. Hopeful exuberance in the face of systemic control and change, it is no wonder that Stanley Kubrick chose this song to make a much darker statement 20 years later.

After the rewrites are in place for “The Dancing Cavalier,” production begins in earnest. Lina gives the physical performance, but all the while it is Kathy’s voice that provides the soundtrack.

“The Dancing Cavalier” comes together. With the premiere looming ever closer, only one big musical number remains. Again Donen and Kelly use the process of movie making to showcase the “Broadway Melody Ballet.” As Don pitches the idea to the producer, the onscreen images transition to the musical number itself. Within the context of “Singin’ in the Rain” we’re watching Don’s idea, not the finished production.

The “Broadway Melody Ballet” is an enormous theatrical undertaking. It’s huge, expansive, mixes various forms of classical, modern and jazz dance, and lasts for 13 minutes. This pure musical number takes up over ten percent of the running time for “Singin’ in the Rain,” and does so without furthering a character arc, the story, or increasing emotional context or dramatic tension.

It is obvious that Donen and Kelly wanted a technically adventurous blowout musical extravaganza. This heavily produced showpiece exists to entertain alone, and Kelly and Donen get the “Broadway Melody Ballet” into “Singin in the Rain” by having Don pitch it to his producer.

The last of the reshoots are in the can, edited, and ready to screen. The night of the premiere descends upon Lina, Don, Kathy and Cosmo.

The opening is a success and “The Dancing Cavalier” looks to be a smash hit. Lina wants to keep Kathy under her thumb as nothing more than the voice of Lina Lamont, but when the curtain call comes Lina’s arrogance gets the best of her.

The crowd calls for a song, Lina agrees. With Kathy staged behind the curtain and Lina lip-syncing to a dead microphone, Don and Cosmo raise the curtain and reveal the ruse.

Kathy gets her glory, Lina’s a laughing stock, and it’s time to make the next picture.

“Singin’ in the Rain” is a deceptive masterpiece. It feels light and easy. It is thoroughly watchable with songs that are the ear-wormiest of earworms. Don’t let this charming film fool you though. It is surprisingly multilayered, and the more you peel back those layers the more and more complex it becomes.

So why is “Singin’ in the Rain” the greatest musical ever made? Because it gives you all of the surface content that musical lovers expect, satisfying dance routines, great songs, funny side characters, and a little love affair. It also makes an interesting statement on a transition within a young popular artistic medium. Finally it not only doesn’t hide that it is a movie, but revels in it. It may be a tad elitist to compare “Singin’ in the Rain” to a Pollock painting, but the embracing of a particular medium so completely feels the same.

Whether you want to tap your foot and sing along, or you want something heady and challenging, just go watch “Singin’ in the Rain.” This one really may have it all.

Up next #4 Raging Bull (1980)

1 Year, 100 Movies #6 Gone with the Wind (1939)

1 Year, 100 Movies #7 Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

1 Year, 100 Movies #8 Schindler’s List (1993)

1 Year, 100 Movies #9 Vertigo (1958)

For links to #10-19, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #10 The Wizard of Oz (1939)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

There was something incredible going on in 1939 in Hollywood. Call it naïve arrogance and a belief that popular art was still art. Whatever it was it gave us two incredible films that show the vivid depths of which motion picture was capable. “The Wizard of Oz” came in at #10, and now at #6 we have “Gone with the Wind.”

I find it surprising that Victor Fleming directed both “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gone with the Wind” for most of each film’s principal photography. This gives Fleming the jaw-dropping stat of only director with two films on AFI’s list where both films appear in the top ten.

“Gone with the Wind,” because it is a fable of the American South through the Civil War and into the Reconstruction, and because it was made in 1939, only 75 years from the end of the war, has many of the markers of subjugation and racial intolerance. Yet even in 1939, the filmmakers involved, led by producer David Selznick, knew that they were creating myth and not reality. They were making a watercolor image of the South.

Another surprising aspect of the two 1939 films, which are in the top ten, is that both are built around strong female protagonists. Just as “The Wizard of Oz” is about Dorothy, “Gone with the Wind” is Scarlett’s story. The Civil War and Reconstruction just serve as backdrops for this compelling drama about a woman’s ability to adapt and survive through the radical changes taking place around her.

Many have described Scarlett as the quintessential Southern bitch. British director Victor Seville when talking to Vivien Leigh, who would later land the coveted role, told her, “Vivien, I’ve just read a great story for the movies about the bitchiest of all bitches, and you’re just the person to play the part.” In spite of Seville’s assessment of Scarlett, it is a mistake to overly simplify this character.

Scarlett is tough and always places survival above honor, but many could look at her qualities as markers of strength, will and character. Scarlett as played by Leigh is beautiful, but rarely the helpless object of sexual desire. Even Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) seems to see more a kindred spirit than a sexual conquest. Scarlett is strong, but never masculine. She understands what the culture around her expects from a woman of the time, and bends to that cultural will only so far as she must to achieve her own ends.

As the women take their nap, the men discuss the coming war. Scarlett sneaks away and finds her beloved Ashley to confess her love for him.

Scarlett doesn’t run after Ashley until she hears of his engagement to Melanie. Once the engagement is announced, Scarlett must have him. When Ashley turns Scarlett away, she flippantly marries Charles Hamilton (Rand Brooks) as he and the other men rush off to war.

Scarlett is no vixen, or wilting flower. She moves to Atlanta to live with Melanie. When Charles is killed, Scarlett stays to help the war cause and tend the wounded. When she looks to flee to Tara, the doctor convinces her to stay and care for the pregnant Melanie. Only after the child is born and Atlanta is in flames do Scarlett and Melanie escape with the help of Rhett Butler.

The burning of Atlanta gives us one of the more visually compelling images ever put to film.

To make the burning of Atlanta visually overwhelming it would take a pretty huge undertaking. Selznick’s studio in Culver City had been accumulating sets over its years of filmmaking. Those sets were filled with kerosene soaked garbage and set ablaze behind a flat that was made to look like the Atlanta warehouse district.

When in doubt, set everything in the studio’s back lot on fire.

Scarlett, Melanie, and Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) make it back to Tara, which has suffered neglect and fallen into disrepair. Gripped by hunger Scarlett swears she’ll never be hungry again.

I find Scarlett utterly compelling and sometimes admirable. In this moment, though her motives are often self-serving, she accepts her role as head of the household and resolves to do whatever she has to in order to save Tara and rebuild her world.

Scarlett nurses the ailing Melanie, protects Tara from a Yankee deserter searching for loot, and works the cotton fields alongside her sisters and their family’s servants.

As the war ends, the men who fought return home. It is not long before Ashley returns to Tara in search of Melanie. Scarlett wants to run to him, but the always-aware Mammy (Hattie McDaniel) holds her back.

I would however like to point out that Mammy is the most aware and alert character in the entire film. No one else in “Gone with the Wind” knows as much about the situation at hand as Mammy. She understands that Scarlett wants to run to Ashley, but Mammy holds Scarlett back because to run to Ashley would destroy everything Scarlett has just saved from ruin.

Later Rhett says that Mammy is the only person whose respect he desires, and rightfully so. She is an astute judge of character, she is loyal, and she is just.

As a large black woman in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, Hattie McDaniel was type cast for her entire career as a house servant or maid. It is unfortunate, because she proves that with limited screen time she is capable of creating a complex and insightful character. In spite of the fact that she did it while playing a slave, then servant, McDaniel earns her Academy Award, the first ever awarded to an African American.

With Twelve Oaks destroyed, Ashley stays on to work the fields at Tara. It is not long until he and Scarlett find themselves alone together.

The carpetbagger landlord soon distracts Scarlett from her thoughts of Ashley. He demands his rent, and it is more than Scarlett can come up with in so short a time. She hears that Rhett has been captured and is being held in Atlanta. Scarlett rushes off to seek his aid.

Scarlett turns Frank’s general store into a lumber mill. By employing ruthless business practices, Scarlett quickly regains her fortune and status, but her arrogance leads her into trouble.

Returning home one evening, Scarlett takes her carriage through the nearby shantytown. She is accosted by one of the squatters, but Big Sam, her father’s former field foreman, helps her get away.

In retaliation for the assault, Frank, Ashley and a number of other men decide to go into the shantytown and rout out the people living there. Rhett comes to warn Scarlett, Melanie and the other women that the plot has been found out, and the local Union soldiers are looking for Ashley and Frank.

Without waiting for Scarlett to get into another opportunistic marriage, Rhett marries her. Rhett sees their paring as that of equals, both are ambitious, bordering on unscrupulous. Scarlett never seems to love Rhett and simply sees the marriage as a way to secure her fortune, home in Atlanta and Tara.

Scarlett continues to harbor feelings for Ashley, but does so more to keep Rhett at arms distance and exert her independence. Rhett and Scarlett struggle through the birth and accidental death of their child, Bonnie. It is not until Melanie falls ill and on her deathbed tells Scarlett to take care of Rhett that Scarlett understands what Rhett means to her.

When Scarlett asks him where she should go and what she should do, Rhett delivers his most famous line.

Watching “Gone with the Wind” this time around made me long for the days when a film could be four hours long because the story warranted it. This allows for characters to be well rounded, and thought out. They can make mistakes, then grow from them. They can become tarnished, yet wonderful. They can feel real to us.

An incredible film driven by a single female character, “Gone with the Wind” is a brilliant hybrid of popular and cinematic culture, and though it has fallen two spaces to #6, its place somewhere high on AFI’s list is assured for some time to come.

Up Next #5 “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952)

1 Year, 100 Movies #7 Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

1 Year, 100 Movies #8 Schindler’s List (1993)

1 Year, 100 Movies #9 Vertigo (1958)

For links to #10-19, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #10 The Wizard of Oz (1939)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

It’s difficult to talk about #7 “Lawrence of Arabia” in any way that is either helpful or effective. Is this a biopic and adventure film? When it was first released in 1962, a number of critics gave David Lean‘s epic less than satisfactory marks for reducing the life of T.E. Lawrence down to that of a movie hero. If it’s an adventure film then it’s one of the slowest, least action packed adventure films ever made.

Is it a film about the wide thought provoking expanses of the desert, as many modern critics would have us believe? It is without a doubt that Lean understood the power of geography, specifically the desert, to evoke strong emotion, and uses it effectively. Still these critical responses seem to leave out the huge amount of time that our main characters spend inside. Some leave out our main characters all together.

I would offer that “Lawrence of Arabia” is an exploration of the sublime, and all of its facets, Lean’s use of the desert, the clash of cultures and lack of simple resolutions, the enigmatic quality of T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole), follow this pursuit.

I must explain that I am not using sublime in its watered down contemporary form. This isn’t a term that applies to a delicious slice of pie, or a terrible frat-rock band. Sublime in its classic sense refers to things, which are so enormous, so magnificent, or so intangible that they inspire awe, reverence, and fear.

That tingling urge to jump when you stand on the edge of a cliff or tall building, that is the sublime playing with you. The desire to stand on your porch in mid-central Kansas, and watch the storm system create funnel clouds as the sirens blare is the desire to succumb to the sublime.

Concepts that are too large, too difficult, or ever changing belong to the sublime. The sublime is often beautiful and always dangerous.

For those who have seen “Lawrence of Arabia,” it is easy to see the sublime in the long steady shots of the desert. Those beautiful 70mm shots staring into the vastness of the horizon cause eyestrain and overload as we search for the small speck that might be someone else out there amongst the desolation. The desert is easier to talk about, but what about Lawrence?

The remembrances of the prologue carry us back to the beginning of the story.

During World War I, Lawrence was a young officer and scholar with a particular interest in Arab culture. Because of his knowledge of the Bedouin, Mr. Dryden (Claude Rains) of the Arab Bureau calls upon Lawrence to assess the prospects of Prince Feisal’s (Alec Guinness) resistance of the Turkish forces.

Feisal has been asked to fall back to Yanbu, on the central coast of the Red Sea. There the British forces can offer some small fortifications and weaponry. Though prudent, this move would force Feisal to give up ground to the Turks. Lawrence, unsatisfied with the idea of giving up ground, wanders into the desert to dream up a plan.

If they can make it through the desert, Lawrence believes that other Arab tribes, impressed by their feat of courage, will join with them to oust the Turks. Many describe the plan as foolhardy or even blasphemous, but Ali and others line up to cross the desert with Lawrence.

Just as they are about to clear the Sun’s Anvil, a particularly relentless portion of the desert, Lawrence realizes that a member of their party has wandered off. In spite of Ali’s warnings, Lawrence turns back to collect the lost man.

For a slow moving sequence, this scene is unbelievably tense. Lean uses the oppressive brightness of the desert to motivate the emotion of the moment. It causes the viewer to stare into the vast void of the open desert. We can see the beauty of the desert but also is ability to utterly destroy a person.

David Lean takes a character that has been quirky and interesting up to this point, and starts to reveal his complexities through clever juxtaposition. Many look at this as moment when Lawrence, through arrogance or sheer force of will, defies the desert, but in regards to the story, Lean shows us that Lawrence and the desert are one and the same.

The desert is beautiful and dangerous, but to put it in such feeble terms is reductive and almost absurd. Lawrence too is fascinating and terrifying, but again to simplify this maddening and complex character is ridiculous. Lean instead just shows us these kindred spirits, and hopes that the comparison will bear fruit. It is a masterstroke that shows us two characters, the desert and Lawrence, which are almost impossible to describe with words, and forces us to resolve them in our own minds.

Lawrence emerges from the desert with the lost man, and is welcomed as a hero. Ali presents him with sheik’s robes and renames him El Aurens.

The image of Lawrence in his robes is at once comical and majestic. Even he admires and laughs at himself. This is the sublime in human form. Lawrence’s character traits are in constant conflict, and we never fully resolve who he is or why he acts the way he does. One could talk about Lawrence for hours and come no closer to any satisfying conclusions, but that doesn’t mean that the discussion won’t be fun or action packed.

Ali and Lawrence meet up with Auda Abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn), a tribal leader working with the Turks, but convince him to join them to take Aqaba.

Allenby orders Lawrence to continue disrupting the Turkish forces, and arms him with money and guns. An American journalist, Jackson Bentley, who is searching for a hero that could ease the U.S. transition into war, finds his poster boy in Lawrence.

The Turkish Bey (José Ferrer) who questions him takes him for a deserter. Never once is Lawrence mistaken for an Arab, and when he returns to Ali, broken and changed from his hours of torture, Lawrence explains what keeps him from being an Arab.

Lawrence, changed by his abuse at the hands of the Turks, hires criminals and murders to join the Arab coalition. When they come upon a column of Turkish forces marching through the desert, Lawrence, who had always been skeptical of violence, calls for the full slaughter of all of the Turkish troops.

If the previous scene showed us the beauty and appealing mystery of the sublime, as represented by the character of Lawrence, then this scene shows us the sublime’s destructive power. Lawrence, and all things sublime, draw you in, but can cause you irrevocable harm.

The Arab forces do take Damascus, but bickering amongst tribes undermines the successful establishment of any coalition. Talks fall apart and Lawrence is left at the negotiation table alone.

Since this is a discussion of the sublime, let’s delve into some other ridiculous figures that are hard to wrap your skull around. In 1963 at the Golden Globes, Academy Awards and BAFTAs, “Lawrence of Arabia’ received a combined total of 14 award wins and an additional 7 nominations.

The top ten billed actors from “Lawrence of Arabia” have won a total of 6 Academy Awards out of 33 nominations, 5 BAFTAs from 22 nominations, and 10 Golden Globes out of 25 nominations. That gives this group of actors a mindboggling 21 awards from 80 nominations.

But we can’t have the good without the bad, right? Unfortunately we can’t.

The problem is not with the film, but its presence on AFI’s list of 100 best American films. This is not, except by a minor technicality, an American film.

Its director, David Lean, is British, and making the film through Horizon Pictures, a British production company. Most of the actors are British, and portraying characters, that are themselves British. The film was originally released in England one week before its release in the U.S. “Lawrence of Arabia” was distributed through Columbia Pictures, but as with “Bridge on the River Kwai” I have a lot of difficulty calling these films American.

I always want any excuse to revisit either of these films and “Lawrence of Arabia” is deserving of the acclaim, but to not acknowledge its country of origin seems a little backhanded.

Whether British or American, “Lawrence of Arabia” is an incredible film that everyone should try to experience on the big screen at some point.

Up next #6 “Gone with the Wind” (1939)

1 Year, 100 Movies #8 Schindler’s List (1993)

1 Year, 100 Movies #9 Vertigo (1958)

For links to #10-19, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #10 The Wizard of Oz (1939)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

As I move towards the final films on AFI’s list, directors who have multiple films on the list begin to come into focus. Their body of work starts to form patterns and the historical perspective, within the context of popular American cinema, gives insight into their influences and inspiration.

#8 “Schindler’s List” is Steven Spielberg‘s final appearance on AFI’s top 100. It is his fifth film to appear, after “E.T.,” “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “Saving Private Ryan.” What this list of films from Spielberg illustrates to me is a filmmaker’s uncanny ability to choose compelling subject matter, even more so than his talent as an artist. Each film taps into a core desire or fantasy of an enormous group of people.

“E.T.” gives us childhood fantasy, and the desire to be chosen or special. “Jaws” taps into our primal fears, and terrifies us with an unseen attacker. “Raiders” gives us an escape from everyday life, and places us within a conspiracy driven supernatural adventure. Finally “Saving Private Ryan” taps into the collective nostalgia and sacrifice of an aging generation. To attack any one of these films risks a backlash from those that sympathize with and hold dear the subject matter, even when the films themselves are flawed.

I have had my differences with Spielberg’s approach to filmmaking, and I have participated in arguments over the importance of his work, most notably in regards to “E.T.” Before I dive into “Schindler’s List” specifically, I would like to pose a question concerning Spielberg’s work that has appeared thus far. As the only director with five films scattered throughout AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list, he is presented as more influential than any other single director. Does Spielberg deserve such a vaunted position?

I of course have my opinion, but the question is not rhetorical. I would like someone to try and show me how Steven Spielberg is more important than Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder, Charlie Chaplin, or Alfred Hitchcock. I feel that though Spielberg has a few films that are deserving of praise, his importance has been severely overinflated, because the subject matter that he chooses is without reproach.

My wife, Jaime, nailed it when she said that Steven Spielberg is the New York Yankees of filmmaking. He has the money to buy all the talent he could ever hope for, the marketing power to promote any film to a successful opening weekend, and a knack for understanding what will sell. Most modern Yankees fans seem to value winning over the love baseball. Most Spielberg fans seem to love winning over a love of film. Even though he produced them and did not direct them, the Transformers films should illustrate my point.

In regards to “Schindler’s List,” Spielberg chooses a subject that is ready made for a compelling visual story. Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) is an unlikely hero. A pragmatic war profiteer, he finds himself at first taking advantage of then sympathizing with Jews in Krakow during World War II. Schindler goes so far as to transport and protect a large group of Jewish laborers until the end of the war.

In his introduction of Schindler, Spielberg presents us with a man that craves power and status. He is corrupt and charming, and most importantly he knows exactly how to get what he wants. Schindler is not evil, but he is pragmatic and understands how the war can work to his advantage.

When the subject leads the visual content, then “Schindler’s List” is a success. Unfortunately Spielberg has never been known as a director who has a light touch. His compulsion to overwork his subject into a frothy lather works against “Schindler’s List” and gives us a film that is also one quarter saccharine filled moments that belong in a made for television drama, not a powerful cinematic offering about the Holocaust.

Many have speculated as to what the girl in the red dress means. I think the answer is simple. Spielberg needs to give Schindler something that can act as a fulcrum for his shift from profiteer to protector. He also needs to make this fulcrum visually distinct, so that the audience will recognize it.

Spielberg makes two mistakes with this particular image. First, he should give us some way of making this child visually distinct that works well in black and white. It seems a sloppy choice to color-tint the dress, and feels similar to voiceover that is created as an afterthought to clarify meaning and ease a scene. Some distinct ornamentation on her outfit would have worked in black and white, and would have been a more elegant choice.

Second, we are given a single child that motivates Schindler to his act of humanity. Do we need such a singular element with the enormity of violence that surrounds Schindler? The death of an innocent is always a tragedy, but how does this one child standout amongst the piles of the dead who are incinerated? I find the hill of burning bodies a more emotionally poignant image, and one that could easily motivate our protagonist. I just find the girl in the red dress a bit of distracting and unsubtle filmmaking.

Though I think that Spielberg’s forced sentimentality does rupture the film, it does not derail it, and there are moments when Spielberg can give us a visual punch to the gut.

Ralph Fiennes gives a great performance as Goeth. It would be difficult to make such a despicable character even slightly sympathetic, but Fiennes manages to increase Goeth’s terrifying presence by also making him charming and human. Though Goeth is entirely condemnable, his actions arise from human weakness, which makes him all the more frightening.

During the first two hours of “Schindler’s List,” the film builds slowly. Spielberg incrementally ratchets up the violence on screen, so that Schindler and the viewer accept the scenario that develops. All of this changes when the bodies of those killed during the forced expulsion of the Krakow ghetto are exhumed and incinerated.

With that, Schindler and Stern create the list.

Beginning with the incineration and continuing until all of the labor force arrives in Czechoslovakia, Spielberg begins a truly epic visual journey that is reminiscent of John Ford, F.W. Murnau, or John Huston.

The men, chosen by Schindler, arrive safely in Czechoslovakia, but the women are accidentally sent to Auschwitz. One doesn’t need words when you have images like this to tell your story.

Schindler discovers that an error has been made, and that the women he selected for his factory have instead been marked for extermination at Auschwitz. He makes a round of appeals and bribes the correct individuals to insure that the Jewish women, who he had on his list, are sent to him.

Even so, the girls are separated as nonessential but Schindler makes a passionate appeal, claiming that only their hands are small enough to polish the insides of shell casings.

Though the time at Auschwitz is a remarkable piece of cinema that shows tact courage and subtlety, Spielberg can’t allow his work to just be. After the end of the war and a heartfelt speech from Schindler, Spielberg must have his protagonist breakdown, and vocalize the emotions that we should be feeling.

How much more complex would it have been if Schindler had simply shaken Stern’s hand, looked around, and left? It would have forced the viewer to come to the conclusion that Spielberg too easily provides.

The epilogue further ruptures the film as a narrative. I can understand the impulse to have the Schindler Jews participate in this project, but though it is a touching documentary moment, it feels as though we are being force-fed.

I find it troublesome that many of the same critics who tore down “The Color Purple” and “The Empire of the Sun,” two films that I feel are better than “Schindler’s List,” for being overly sentimental and poorly constructed, would praise the fearlessness of Spielberg and the power of his Holocaust epic, without pointing out the forceful manipulation that Spielberg uses to conclude his film.

The content is unquestionably gripping and beyond critique, but that stands apart from a discussion of “Schindler’s List” as a film or work of art. I do think that “Schindler’s List” is a solid film, and it probably does deserves a place on AFI’s list, but the flaws that distract from the content should be considered before placing this film in the top 10. The top of this list should be reserved for films that approach perfection, and though it shows potential, “Schindler’s List” falls far short.

Up Next #7 “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962)

1 Year, 100 Movies #9 Vertigo (1958)

For links to #10-19, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #10 The Wizard of Oz (1939)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

What a weird and wonderfully perfect film for AFI to choose as the final and most highly regarded of Alfred Hitchcock’s work. #9 “Vertigo” could be the greatest film from an absolute legend, who has already dominated the list with three prior appearances. Hitchcock’s previous listed films, “North by Northwest,” “Rear Window,” and “Psycho,” have all, at least in part, focused on his obsession with control.

Whether you’re a charming young psychotic or a suave older silver fox, Hitchcock is going to put the screws to you. Each of Hitchcock’s protagonists is subjected to an immobilizing lack of control, whether it is from a lack of knowledge, a physical injury, or a psychological condition. Each of his men acts out against their helplessness in differing ways, with heroic or frightening results. In all cases, there is a sexual bent to the man’s actions, and it’s always aimed at a stoic, and stiff blonde beauty.

Hitchcock uses “Vertigo” to continue his exploration of the physical and emotional impotence of his male characters, as well as their desire to control the women that are closest to them. Hitchcock gives us perhaps his most multifaceted character, John Ferguson (James Stewart), a detective forced to give up police work when he develops acrophobia (the fear of heights) after a traumatic event.

Hitchcock again shows us that the most fascinating characters are often the most flawed. Ferguson is an active lawman until he’s out on a job, misses a jump while chasing a ne’er-do-well, and watches as his fellow officer plummets to his death.

After this brief setup, Hitchcock begins the story in earnest. John has mended except for his newly acquired fear of heights accompanied by vertigo, and we catch back up with him as he spends an afternoon in his friend Midge’s (Barbara Bel Geddes) apartment. There is an obvious comfort and tension between the two, and we soon find out that Midge and John we’re once engaged.

The effortless complexity contained within “Vertigo” gives this film the ability to stand up to endless viewings. I’ll use a short conversation between Midge and John as an example. Midge playfully states that there is only one man for her, and John replies that it’s him. He then reveals that the pair was once engaged, and it was Midge that broke it off.

Maybe two or three lines of dialogue are used and yet we could now speculate endlessly about what the relationship between these two consists of. Is it a deep friendship, a fizzled love affair, or something else? Maybe John couldn’t commit, but then why did Midge break it off? If it ended badly, then why is John sitting on her couch and sharing a pleasant conversation with her? The relationship between Midge and John isn’t even at the heart of “Vertigo,” and yet even here Hitchcock creates layer upon layer of story.

Because of his acrophobia, John takes early retirement from the police force, but an old friend, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), asks John for a favor. It seems that Gavin’s wife, Madeline (Kim Novak), has been acting strangely. She seems to have been possessed by a malevolent spirit, and Gavin believes that while in one of her trances, Madeline may hurt herself. Gavin wants John to follow Madeline to accumulate evidence, so that Gavin may be able to commit her to an institution.

John follows Madeline to a florist where she purchases a small arrangement. From there she visits an old grave at the Mission Dolores, before going to the Legion of Honor, where she sits and stares at a large portrait.

John finds out that the woman in both the painting and the grave are the same, Carlotta Valdes. She was a tragic figure. The discarded mistress of a wealthy businessman, Carlotta took her own life when she was the same age as Madeline.

Gavin tells John that Madeline was related to Carlotta and that he fears she may try to take her own life. As if on cue, Madeline jumps into San Francisco Bay. John, who has become enamored of Madeline, rushes to pull her from the watery depths.

John rushes the unconscious Madeline back to his apartment, and puts her to bed. When she wakes, they have an awkward, but pleasant chat by John’s fire. John’s growing obsession with Madeline is becoming manifest. She seems to share his affections, if not his obsession, but then again she is not the one who gazes, she is the object that is gazed upon.

As the two wander the city together, it seems only a matter of time before something like this happens.

Hitchcock’s use of compositing is overt and brilliant. This is how you get the ocean waves to hit at exactly the right moment. In less confident hands the scene would have fallen apart, but as it stands it pushes the viewer emotionally. This scene, like most of Hitchcock’s work, has been parodied many times over, but the original still maintains its power.

Madeline continues to fall into her trances, but John has hope that with encouragement, Madeline might shake the spirit that seems to have taken hold.

Meanwhile, Midge has discovered what John has been up to, and, in order to get his attention, she paints a portrait for him as a gift.

This moment doesn’t last for very long, since John doesn’t find Midge’s joke very funny, but this single image of the pained Midge sitting next to her wonderful and awkward self-portrait tells us all we need to know. That Midge still holds a flame for John is apparent, and in his eyes she will never measure up to his idealized image of Madeline.

Madeline continues having her visions, in them she sees a Spanish mission, which John identifies as Mission San Juan Bautista. They plan a day trip, but everything seems to be unraveling. When Madeline runs off to the bell tower, John weighed down by his acrophobia cannot follow. As he struggles up the stairs, Madeline throws herself from the tower’s heights.

John looks down on his lover helpless.

If you have never seen “Vertigo,” then shame on you, but more importantly, STOP READING THIS NOW! Everything from here on out will ruin the experience of viewing it on your own. Now go watch “Vertigo.”

Now.

Madeline’s death doesn’t occur until over halfway through “Vertigo.” The first half is all tone and character development. A number of critics at the time of the film’s release in 1958 complained that it takes too long to get going. I feel that the slow plodding pace accentuates the jolt of speed that happens after Madeline’s death. From here until the end, the film’s pace is relentless.

Consumed by guilt, John succumbs to a feverish dream where he sees Carlotta framed in such a way as to accentuate her necklace.

At this moment, we take this image for granted, and see it as an image of Carlotta’s spirit haunting John. He did after all follow Madeline as she wandered from relic to relic marking Carlotta’s life and death.

Hitchcock doesn’t mess around though. Everything within any of his frames is placed there for a reason, either to direct or misdirect our attention. He continues to layer in information in such a way as to make the viewer feel brilliant later on, when the reason is finally revealed.

Unfortunately it is less our deductive reasoning and powers of observation, and more Hitchcock’s obsessive control and mastery of his medium. He hides everything in plain sight and uses repetition to reinforce his intent. Hitchcock may be a controlling and brilliant master, but the payoff is oh so worth it.

John’s dream continues in hallucinatory glory, and he envisions himself falling into an open grave. Hitchcock gives us an incredible image that is creepy and unforgettable.

Want to talk about a visual sequence that is chalk full of loaded images? The dream sequence that Hitchcock gives us is full of imagery that could have many a thesis writer busy for months. Add to that the fact that it’s just so visually pleasing, and you just can’t go wrong.

After this recent psychological break, John is admitted to a mental hospital. The doctors believe it will be some time before he shows any psychological recovery. The trauma of almost falling from a rooftop, coupled with the grim image of his dead lover has proven too much for him. Ever the dutiful standby, Midge visits, though John is despondent and unresponsive.

Hitchcock lunges ahead. John has recovered, but still haunts the locations where he and Madeline used to go. On one of his circuits, John runs into Judy, a shop girl who bears a remarkable likeness to Madeline. John follows her back to her apartment and asks to talk to her.

Judy reluctantly agrees to talk, when John tells her that she reminds him of someone else. She even agrees to have dinner with John, before he leaves.

Once he is gone, Judy turns to her desk and begins to compose a letter, a confession to a former lover. The letter reveals she was the Madeline whom John fell in love with, though not the real Madeline Elster. Gavin had employed Judy so that he could get rid of his real wife, and have a convenient witness to her “suicide.” Judy destroys the letter, but the images of murder still come to her.

Instead of heavy explanation, Hitchcock gives the viewer Judy’s flashback and shows us what happened in the bell tower.

Why in the world would Hitchcock give away all of the secrets to the mystery that was developing around Madeline’s death, and a good thirty minutes before the film’s conclusion?

Because “Vertigo” is not a whodunit, but a classic example of a liebestod, a story of love through death and the fetishism surrounding a dead lover, which comes with it. It is study of the interactions between two people each struggling with their varied emotional ties to one another. Once the plot is exposed, Hitchcock’s focus comes to bear on Judy, and her melancholy love for John, and John, who wants to find a former lover lurking inside of Judy.

John crafts an obsessive string of demands for Judy. He wants her to change her clothes, her hair, and her makeup. John is trying to mold Judy into Madeline. He cares little for the woman in front of him, and instead lusts for the lost idealized woman that haunts his mind. His obsession becomes fetish as he endows Judy with Madeline’s physical qualities.

Judy, out of love for John or possibly the desire for love, gives in to John’s demands. When the transformation is complete, Judy, now Madeline, steps from the hazy green fog of John’s imagination, and once again takes corporeal form. John, because of his willingness to utterly dominate another person, has his lover back.

So now Hitchcock has put Judy and John back together. Judy is the former murder accomplice, who really loves John and allows him to make her into someone else. Her love contains the sadness of knowing that John is truly in love with a myth. John is the man so consumed with a dead person that he would force a living person to become the deceased.

And yet they seem happy, until Judy makes a mistake when choosing her accessories.

John sees he’s been duped, and now the control that he’s exerted over Judy to this point swells to a new level. John drives Judy and himself to the seen of the crime, and forces Judy up into the mission bell tower, as he describes the crime to her. John is consumed with the idea that another man, in this case Gavin Elster, had sway over Judy/Madeline, which foments John’s insecurities and weakness. The result is anger directed at Judy.

Does this look like the face of a man in love?

This is Jimmy Stewart, folks. The likeable, bumbling, guy next door that won us over in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Here he is a crazed, weak, angry, insecure, despicable character, who still manages to illicit our sympathy. This would be like putting Tom Hanks in a role from “Eyes Wide Shut.” It almost hurts your brain to think about.

Stewart rises to the challenge and gives an honest and believable performance. His character is an utterly broken individual, and though his actions are often questionable, we can understand why such a person would act in this way.

While John advances, Judy cowers.

This is the face of a woman, so tragically in love with a man that she would allow herself to be made into someone else.

Kim Novak was often criticized for her lack of ability as an actress. She was an undeniable beauty, but her performances were seen as stiff and awkward. Roger Ebert claims that her flatness of character helps in “Vertigo,” but I find it difficult to defend the argument that Novak doesn’t show some real chops in her performance as Madeline and Judy.

She must make each person believably different, so that Stewart’s character, John, will react with rage when he thinks of Gavin coaching, and training Judy to become Madeline. I find the melancholy and longing that Novak brings to Judy thoroughly satisfying and believable, and I see her as an underused and undervalued actress.

When the shadowy figure of a nun rises into the bell tower with Judy and John, Judy loses her footing and falls. Hitchcock leaves us with a final stark image.

What a way to end a film. Hitchcock gives us with two dead women; a broken man looking down on one of them; a murderer, who runs free; and an emotionally broken friend back home in San Francisco. A more complex ending is hard to find.

“Vertigo” will stay high on any list of great films, because its complexity does not stem from the plot points that the story follows, but the motivation and intent behind actions that we see on screen.

Hitchcock cripples Ferguson with acrophobia then makes it necessary from him to rush to the top of a bell tower. Hitchcock keeps the objects of Ferguson’s desires just out of reach. This constant frustration forces Ferguson to act out. His insecurities and lack of control push this character to the ends we’ve seen.

In the same way, Hitchcock has Gavin buy off Judy, and then forces Judy to fall in love with John, only to again to be forced into the body of another. This time, it’s for love not money. We can see that these characters move in the right direction, and their actions are satisfying and real, but each action has multiple layers of meaning. Each time you watch “Vertigo,” John and Judy will do what they do for completely different reasons, but with the same tragic results.

Though I have rambled on for way too long, I have only just scratched the surface of what “Vertigo” has to offer. I would encourage anyone, who wants a truly unique and fruitful cinematic experience to go and revisit Hitchcock’s best.

Next up #8 Schindler’s List (1993)

For links to #10-19, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #10 The Wizard of Oz (1939)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

Like most people who grew up in the Midwest, and more specifically in Missouri and Kansas, I have a complex relationship with “The Wizard of Oz.”

Whenever I have either traveled or lived outside of Kansas City, once somebody learns where I’m from the litany of Toto, Scarecrow, or Oz references usually follows. I almost always get a “You’re not in Kansas anymore.”

These annoying asides always cause the one spouting to chuckle proudly to themselves, as if they were not only an astute follower of popular culture, but had also made a deep and meaningful connection with a simpleton from the wasteland of the Midwest. To those non-Midwesterners out there, these comments make you look stupid. If I were to dress in a sailor suit and start singing songs from “On the Town” every time I met a New Yorker, I would look like an idiot, too.

Though I have heard silly people misquoting “The Wizard of Oz” in glorious and annoying fashion, it doesn’t take away from a deep seeded connection that I have with the film itself. There is an uncanny resonance in “The Wizard of Oz,” and whenever I watch the film, my viewing is often reverent.

The rich sepia and the open landscape of the Kansas scenes spoke to me as a child. This was geography, a home, which I recognized. Even if it did not look at all like my own home in Kansas City, I was never far from a place that looked remarkably similar to the Gale residence.

The longing that Dorothy (Judy Garland) feels early on may be the universal longing of a child as they mature into adulthood, but for the Midwesterner, the lonely melancholy that leads to her song, “Over the Rainbow” has a specificity to it that is hard to describe.

Judy Garland is perfect in this her most famous role. She is often understated in her theatricality, and there is a genuine sadness that she brings to her character. Even though we all know the story, the insecurity and humanity that Garland pours into the role makes us unsure of whether Dorothy has the substance to overcome her challenges. This uncertainty makes Dorothy’s victory all the more satisfying, when she does succeed

Her longing to go somewhere else and the threat to Toto from Miss Gulch, lead Dorothy to runaway. She only makes it a short way down the road when she meets Professor Marvel (Frank Morgan), a carnival seer.

Marvel, through his clever deduction and quick investigation of Dorothy’s belongings, concocts a story of a worried Aunt, who is stricken with grief over a missing child. Dorothy, concerned for her Aunt Em (Clara Blandick), rushes back home.

That is the fascinating thing about “The Wizard of Oz.” Dorothy has already changed her mind and has decided to return to the farm, but there is a distinction between the half-hearted change that comes with remorse or guilt, and the genuine change that comes from experience.

The wind and the weather will spark that experience.

I have lived in a landscape where I have witnessed an actual tornado, and I still think that the tornado in “The Wizard of Oz” is the most menacing film tornado I have ever seen. Because of this tornado, I had an emergency bag packed so that I could be ready to descend the basement steps as soon as the weather sirens blared. Forget the more technologically impressive “Twister.” “The Wizard of Oz” captures the dark and beautiful evil of a tornado, as it looms ever closer.

“The Wizard of Oz” often flirts with real danger and teeters near the edge of being legitimately scary. It allows children a cathartic moment and gives adults the emotional markers, which open the door to their own childhoods.

Before the tornado becomes too frightening, Dorothy, Toto and her house are swept away in the gusts and transported to a magical world, where munchkins sing, and a good witch (Billie Burke) and bad witch (Margaret Hamilton) argue over Dorothy’s fabulous new shoes.

Keep in mind that “The Wizard of Oz” came out in 1939, only two years after “Snow White” was released. If “Snow White” was a shot across the bow of live action films, that signaled the limitations of sets and actors, then “The Wizard of Oz” was the return volley.

Instead of providing the viewer with every visual wish they could ask for, “The Wizard of Oz” gives us visual cues and lets our imaginations take it from there. You can often see the line where the set stops and the backdrop begins, but the blurry line between real and fantasy works for “The Wizard of Oz.” We know it’s fake, but still accept it as real, because its truth extends beyond the flats and backdrops that fill the frame.

With basket in hand, Toto at her side, and a pair of ruby slippers to protect her, Dorothy is off to see the Wizard.

As Dorothy skips down the path, she comes across three companions, a Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), a Tin Woodman (Jack Haley), and a Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr). Each is in desperate need of a brain, a heart and some courage respectively. Dorothy invites them to join her on her journey.

One of the striking things about “The Wizard of Oz” that stood out to me during this particular viewing was the emphasis given to female characters. The main character is a young girl and her adversary in both the dream world of Oz and on the plains of Kansas is a woman. The male characters offer help and support, but it is Dorothy that leads them.

In a time where every movie seems to focus on the childhood fantasies of teen boys, filmmakers could take note of the almost universal appeal that “The Wizard of Oz” holds for both children and adults, whether they are male or female. Dorothy is all of us.

As they travel and encounter various obstacles, including the narcotic poppies, we realize that all three of Dorothy’s companions already have the qualities they hope to get from the Wizard. The Tin Man is sensitive to a fault, the Scarecrow often has a plan, and the Lion is usually courageous in spite of himself. Like Dorothy, they already possess what they desire, but often the desired thing is less important than the journey to secure it.

With that, our quintet enters the Emerald City.

In the Land of Oz, our heroes are cleaned up and made presentable, before they meet the Wizard. There are a couple of obstinate guards, but some evil skywriting and a few tears from Dorothy convince the guards that Dorothy and her friends deserve an audience with the Wizard.

With his flame fountains and his bulging disembodied cranium, the Wizard sends Dorothy and her friends away on a quest. He will fulfill their requests, but first they must bring him the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West.

The group heads off to the Witch’s castle, but the Witch sends in her terrifying winged monkeys to scatter the group and kidnap Dorothy and Toto. The Witch wants the ruby slippers, and she’s prepared to kill Dorothy to get them. She decides to give Dorothy a little time to decide what to do.

Inspired in part by theatrical stage productions, German Expressionism, and “Snow White” the sets and staging for “The Wizard of Oz” often reach extravagant heights, but that isn’t to say that there wasn’t incredible attention given to the little details. I always found the Witch’s hourglass with its red sand a particularly sinister and incredibly well executed touch.

With Dorothy captured and fretting over her impending doom, Toto escapes and gathers the Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow. The Scarecrow comes up with a plan to sneak in and rescue Dorothy.

The three sneak in and find Dorothy, but the Witch and her Winkie guards quickly surround them. Again Dorothy, the clear leader, is the one who stands up to the Witch. When the Scarecrow is threatened, Dorothy inadvertently douses the Witch with water, who melts into nothing.

I find it fascinating that though our heroine has defeated her main foe, the film still has a twist or turn left. When Dorothy and her friends return to Oz, they find out that the Wizard is a fake. He is actually a balloonist, who was blown of track. He landed in Oz and was declared wizard and ruler.

The Wizard does give each of Dorothy’s companions a gift to illustrate that they already have the heart, courage and brain they were after. The Wizard also has a plan for returning home with Dorothy, but even this goes awry, when his balloon unexpectedly takes off without her. It seems that Dorothy’s difficulties will continue up until the end.

Glinda shows up and tells Dorothy that she, like her companions, has always had what she was after. The ruby slippers will take her home, with just three heel clicks and a wish. This moment offers a quick moral and a tearful goodbye, but it is all handled so well that the moment could not be more endearing.

Once Dorothy clicks her heels and makes her wish, she wakes up in her bed back home. She has returned to the familiar sepia of Kansas and she couldn’t be happier.

Her friends back on the farm all chuckle as she tells each they were in the magical land from which she has returned, and then she tells us that she’ll never leave again. As children we feel the same way. We want to run away, but we want to return safely for a hot meal.

Dorothy is like Max in “Where the Wild Things Are.” Neither is ready to leave just yet, but each must test the waters. Though Dorothy now has a newfound appreciation for her own backyard, we know that she can take on the world that lies just over the horizon.

As with “Star Wars,” “The Wizard of Oz” is culturally bigger than any single individual can handle, so feel free to post favorite facts, viewing stories, or your experiences surrounding “The Wizard of Oz” in the comments below. I look forward to reading them.

Next up #9 “Vertigo” (1958)

1 Year, 100 Movies #11 City Lights (1931)

1 Year, 100 Movies #12 The Searchers (1956)

1 Year, 100 Movies #13 Star Wars (1977)

1 Year, 100 Movies #14 Psycho (1960)

1 Year, 100 Movies #15 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

1 Year, 100 Movies #16 Sunset Blvd. (1950)

1 Year, 100 Movies #17 The Graduate (1967)

1 Year, 100 Movies #18 The General (1927)

1 Year, 100 Movies #19 On the Waterfront (1954)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

As AFI’s list dwindles and I draw nearer the top spot, we continue to close certain chapters in American cinema. “The Searchers” was the last western, and John Ford’s last entry on the list. “Star Wars” was the last George Lucas film we’ll see, and “2001” had us bidding Stanley Kubrick a fond farewell.

With #11 “City Lights,” we encounter Charlie Chaplin’s final offering on AFI’s list, and bid adieu to both Chaplin and the silent era.

Again I revisit my consistent struggle when talking about silent films. Some viewers just can’t get beyond the lack of dialogue. For all of the previous entries from “Intolerance” to “The General,” the lack of attention most people give great silent films is disappointing, but in regards to “City Lights,” it is tragic.

In “City Lights,” Chaplin, a master of dancelike physical comedy, illustrates an astute control over character and story. He begins to show a desire to expand the individual bits into more developed moments that are integrated seamlessly into his narrative.

Because of this desire to always give the character and story weight over everything else two incredible things happen. Often we are still chuckling over a small comedic moment as our characters quickly run into their next challenge. The characters continue to move along, and the viewers might catch or miss little moments. This layering of small details gives us an excuse to return to “City Lights” again and again.

The second remarkable thing that happens is the development of real characters. If story and character are your main emphases then you must allow your characters to fail or win in unexpected ways. You must attempt to build in some of the complexities that life has to offer. With “City Lights,” Chaplin never pulls any punches, the victories that the Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) manages are often compromised, and the failures are often crushing.

“City Lights” starts with the unveiling of a new statue, Peace and Prosperity. As the Mayor pulls the curtain from the statue, it reveals the Tramp, sleeping in the lap of Peace.

This scene establishes the Tramp as a reviled outsider. Others brush him aside or angrily chase him away. After a wonderful descent from the top of the statue, in which Chaplin showcases his ability to choreograph some of the best visual comedy you will see, the Tramp makes his escape.

As he navigates the city streets, the Tramp runs into a Blind Girl (Virginia Cherrill) selling flowers. She hears the automobiles moving along the street and mistakes the Tramp for a wealthy businessman. The Tramp, smitten by the Blind Girl’s beauty and kindness, continues the ruse by purchasing her last flower.

When she hears a car door shut and the car pull away, the Blind Girl believes the Tramp has left without his change. He silently takes a seat near her, and watches as she rinses her flower pail. His kindness is repaid by a bucket of water in the face.

We laugh, but there is more than just a silly gag at work here. This is what individuals will endure for people they love. The Tramp quickly moves away before the Girl realizes what has transpired.

That night, as the Tramp sleeps near the docks, an Eccentric Millionaire (Harry Myers) prepares to kill himself. The Tramp wakes and stops him just in time.

Out of drunken gratitude, the Millionaire puts the Tramp in his extra tuxedo and takes him out for a night of revelry through the town. The next morning the Tramp suggests that they purchase some flowers. The Millionaire gives him enough to buy the lot.

Most of the stills I have shown you so far illustrate that “City Lights” is less a slapstickish light comedy, and more a developed romantic comedy with touching elements of drama. Most of the time it is difficult to tell whether Chaplin wants the viewer to laugh or sigh. The complexity of the emotional content throughout the film is wonderful.

The Tramp’s purchase of the flowers reinforces the Blind Girl’s assumption that the Tramp is a wealthy man. He begins courting her, but the money from the Millionaire only comes while the Millionaire is intoxicated. The morning hangover brings with it the reality that the Tramp and the Millionaire live in separate worlds.

The first half of the film is largely built on visual bits and set up. There are moments that can drag a little, but the payoff that comes with the last half of the film makes all of the early groundwork completely worth it.

The Girl falls ill, and the Tramp takes a job in order to keep up his pretense of wealth. He often visits the Girl and brings her gifts and small surprises. The Tramp even finds an advertisement for a new surgical procedure, which could restore the Girl’s eyesight.

Since the Girl has fallen ill, her Grandmother (Florence Lee) has taken over selling flowers, but she doesn’t get as many sales as the Girl. The Tramp discovers a note that they have fallen behind on rent and will soon be evicted. He leaves the apartment determined to help.

The Tramp sits outside the house and ponders how he might save the day. The Millionaire has been away on business and the Tramp’s own small savings won’t cover the late rent or the Girl’s surgery. This moment could just as easily have come out of Lars Von Trier’s “Dancer in the Dark.” Placed in a comedy, it deepens our connection to the characters and makes the story all the more real.

When the Tramp returns to work, the manager reprimands him for his tardiness and fires him. As the Tramp leaves work, a crooked boxer approaches him and offers him a deal to make some quick money. The Tramp will compete against the boxer and throw the fight, and then the two men will split the fifty-dollar pot. Now even more desperate than before for money to help the Blind Girl, the Tramp quickly accepts the offer.

Just before the match, the boxer gets a tip that the police are after him and takes off, leaving the Tramp to fight another boxer. This one isn’t interested in throwing the match or splitting the pot.

So the match begins.

This scene is delightful. Chaplin dances all over the ring, ducking behind the referee, getting tangled in the bell’s cord, and taking awkward swipes at his opponent.

We all know that somehow, the beloved Tramp will succeed in winning the fight, and paying the rent. In a lesser film, that is just what would happen, but in “City Lights” the Tramp loses the bout and is no closer to coming up with the money. The choice to have the Tramp lose is so surprising, so satisfying, and gives the film a wonderful sense of tension.

The Tramp wanders the nighttime streets, where he stumbles upon his friend the Millionaire back home from his business trip, and freshly inebriated. Again we know that the Tramp is just a conversation away from achieving his goal, but he and the Millionaire enter the house while a robbery is taking place.

The Millionaire is knocked unconscious by the burglars after giving the Tramp a large sum of money. The burglars escape, and the Tramp is blamed for the crime.

The Tramp escapes with the money, but the police are after him. He rushes to the Blind Girl, and gives her the money for the rent and the surgery before rushing off to face the police. He only has time to say a last goodbye and leave her clutching the needed money.

This film still could have come from “Sunrise” or “The Grapes of Wrath.” It doesn’t seem like the image from a comedy. That’s why “City Lights” is so good. Never does Chaplin take the easy out, or the suspected path. Instead at every turn, he complicates the story, by forcing his characters to make difficult decisions and suffer the consequences. It is often funny, and always real.

The Tramp is imprisoned for his crime, and released months later. The Girl, having had her sight restored by the surgery, now works in a flower shop downtown. She sees a couple of young boys tormenting the Tramp, who she does not recognize, and laughs along with her coworker.

The Tramp sees her, and becomes fixated when he realizes that she has had the surgery and can now see. He tries to get away before the Girl makes the connection and his long running impersonation of a wealthy man is shattered. The Girl, half-mocking him, calls him back and gives him a flower. When she touches his hand, she realizes who he is.

As the Girl’s slow realization becomes clearer, the Tramp waits, expectant and hopeful.

And that’s how the film ends.

We give Alfred Hitchcock, Mike Nichols, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese and many other modern filmmakers credit for giving us complex endings that allow for debate and discussion, and yet here, in 1931, Charlie Chaplin, a true genius and pioneer of film, gives us a wonderfully ambiguous and emotionally touching ending to his cinematic masterpiece.

If this film had sync sound, it could have been made last year and would still be one of the most compelling dramatic comedies ever made. The image of the Tramp has become an icon, but in “City Lights” he and the Blind Girl are perfect, flaws and all, because they are real people, who show us the best of humanity.

Up Next the top ten begins with #10 “The Wizard of Oz” (1939)

1 Year, 100 Movies #12 The Searchers (1956)

1 Year, 100 Movies #13 Star Wars (1977)

1 Year, 100 Movies #14 Psycho (1960)

1 Year, 100 Movies #15 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

1 Year, 100 Movies #16 Sunset Blvd. (1950)

1 Year, 100 Movies #17 The Graduate (1967)

1 Year, 100 Movies #18 The General (1927)

1 Year, 100 Movies #19 On the Waterfront (1954)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

At #12, we encounter our last western on our way to #1, but “The Searchers” is more than just a western. It is director John Ford’s message to the future.

In 1956 the tastes of the moviegoing public were shifting. They no longer needed their protagonists to maintain untarnished reputations. The good guys could get a little dusty and a little rough like the title character in “Shane,” or they could show weakness and doubt like Will Kane in “High Noon.”

The audience could take subtle shifts and the possibility of imperfection, but Shane and Will Kane are still pretty reserved by today’s standards. It seems that many people weren’t quite ready for Ford’s brilliant intuitive leap, which pushes the sullying of a protagonist to its logical conclusion.

In “The Searchers,” Ford gives us Ethan Edwards (John Wayne), a hard and often despicable man, whose racism dominates his actions. Many did not understand the complexity of Ethan and would either accept his prejudices as justified or simply dismiss that part of his character.

The critical response was lukewarm at the time of its release, but “The Searchers” would inspire Spielberg — and Scorsese and would lay the groundwork for “Taxi Driver,” a reinterpretation of “The Searchers” 20 years later.

The film opens with Ethan returning to the farm of his brother, Aaron (Walter Coy). Aaron’s wife, Martha (Dorothy Jordan), goes out to wait for Ethan as he approaches.

Martha Looks for Ethan

Spielberg would all but lift this moment for the letter delivery scene in “Saving Private Ryan,” but why is Martha, Ethan’s sister-in-law, rushing to the porch to welcome Ethan?

Throughout the early scenes, Ford hints at a less-than-honest relationship between Ethan and Martha. Ethan rushed off to fight in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy, and then wandered for a number of years after the war’s conclusion. Could an illicit love affair with his brother’s wife be the cause for his long hiatus? When Ethan is questioned about his extended absence, he becomes gruff and irritable and Martha quiets the discussion.

There are even subtle hints that Debbie (Natalie Wood), the youngest of Aaron and Martha’s children, may not be Aaron’s, but Ethan’s.

During these early moments, Ford and Wayne also develop Ethan’s racism. When Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), a son adopted by the Edwards after Indians killed his parents, sits down to dinner, Ethan exclaims that young Martin looks like a “half-breed.” Martin states that he is one-eighth Cherokee, but that doesn’t satisfy Ethan, who sneers and makes comments about Martin’s character.

The Ethan’s romance with Martha and growing racist hatred of Martin take a backseat when a group of Comanche steal and slaughter a local farmer’s cattle. The move is a diversion to draw out the sheriff, Samuel Clayton (Ward Bond), and his lawmen, leaving the farmers and their homes unprotected.

The ruse works, and when Ethan and Martin, having both joined Clayton’s posse, return to the Edwards homestead, they find the house in flames and the entire family slaughtered, except for Lucy (Pippa Scott) and young Debbie. The Comanche raiders have taken both girls.

Again a posse forms to pursue the Comanche, but it soon becomes apparent that Ethan wants more than getting Lucy and Debbie back alive. He wants to slaughter as many Indians as he can. There is a telling moment when Ethan shoots out the eyes of a dead Comanche the group finds on the trail. When Clayton says the gesture was a waste of bullets, Ethan explains that according to what Clayton believes that’s true, but according to the Comanche’s beliefs that now eyeless warrior must wander forever, unable to find his way to the afterlife. Ethan wants not justice, but the physical and spiritual destruction of the Comanche.

Clayton realizes that Ethan’s fervor cannot be satisfied. He and his men head back, leaving Ethan, Martin and Brad (Harry Carey Jr.), Lucy’s lover, to continue their pursuit.

The three chase the Comanche, and when the trail splits, Ethan follows the smaller group through the mountains. Ethan catches Martin and Brad on the other side of the ridge, but he is distraught and missing his Confederate overcoat. Brad presses him, and we learn that Ethan has found Lucy’s body and buried her in his coat.

Forget your preconceived notions about John Wayne the American icon. In this hugely important but small moment, Wayne gives an incredible performance. Wayne has scant dialogue to convey what has become of his niece, but with just a line or two and Ethan’s pained expression we know that his niece was savaged and killed by her captors. Wayne builds a man that is burdened with his own troubling character traits, and here is cleft in two by sorrow and hatred.

Brad, consumed by the loss of his lover, rushes into the Comanche camp and is shot down. The Comanche have become Ethan’s white whale, and he and Martin will pursue them until they find their quarry or death takes them.

In 1956, the loss of Ethan’s family was seen as the sole cause for his passionate pursuit, but that was never the intention. Ford wanted to explore how racism could be stoked and grow to consume a person. Ethan’s hatred is not focused on the Comanche that stole his niece and killed his family. It falls on all Indians, regardless of their tribe or outlook. It comes to bear often on his relationship with Martin as they pursue the Comanche.

Though Martin shows his courage and dedication to the search for Debbie, his adopted sister, Ethan continues to reaffirm that Martin’s Indian blood makes him incapable of feeling a kinship to Debbie. Ethan often blames small mistakes Martin makes on the fact that he is part Cherokee. Martin of course feels no real connection to his Cherokee heritage, having been raised by the Edwards, but Ethan’s racism keeps him from accepting Martin as an equal.

Martin and Ethan lose the Comanches’ trail in the snow, and are forced to return home. Since the Edwards’ home was destroyed, they stay with the Jorgensens, a family of farmers that were friends with the Edwards.

The time at the Jorgensen farm gives us the worst of “The Searchers.” Here we find out that Martin is involved with Laurie (Vera Miles), the Jorgensens’ daughter, and there is a romantic subplot to breakup the relentlessness of Ethan’s pursuit.

This developing romance and the comedic moments that come later — when Martin accidentally takes a Native American wife instead of trading for a blanket — rupture the film and date it in a way that distracts from the consuming quality of Ethan’s pursuit. Perhaps Ford wanted to breakup the steady march of the main story, or lighten the impact of his critique of racism, maybe he just wanted to give the audience a laugh or two. Whatever the reason, the comedic and romantic offerings are flawed at best.

Ethan and Martin continue on after receiving a letter from a trader who may know the whereabouts of the Comanche that have Debbie. After a run-in with the unscrupulous trader, a raid on an Indian camp with American soldiers, more years of wandering, the two men finally make it to the camp of the Comanche they have been looking for.

Posing as travelers wishing to trade, Ethan and Martin enter the camp, where they gain an audience with Scar (Henry Brandon), the war chief who leads this band of Comanche. In the camp, they see Debbie, but cannot communicate directly. She has become an adopted Comanche, and is one of Scar’s many wives.

After the meeting we realize that Ethan intends to kill Debbie and as many Comanche as he can. Ethan sees Debbie as defiled. She is a Comanche now, and as such must be destroyed. When Debbie comes to warn Ethan and Martin that a group of Comanche is coming to kill them, Ethan turns his gun on her, but Martin won’t allow Ethan to kill his sister.

Ethan and Martin are chased away, and again return to the Jorgensen farm for a brief respite. It seems that they have arrived on the day of Laurie’s wedding. Martin and Laurie exchange words, and there is a goofy fight between Martin and Laurie’s fiancé. Again the subplot pulls us away from what is best in “The Searchers.”

The Comanche led by Scar have pursued Martin and Ethan. A group of U.S. soldiers warns the Jorgensens and guests, and calls for anyone capable of fighting off the Comanche to saddle up. Ethan of course leads the charge.

Martin, knowing that Debbie will be killed in the attack, sneaks into the camp and rescues her.

Martin and Debbie try to flee the carnage of the attack, but Ethan gives chase. Ethan corners Debbie in the nearby hills, and descends upon her. In the final moments, he picks her up and carries her away to safety.

What!? Look at the confusion on Debbie’s face. Up until now, Ethan has been bent on killing Debbie, a child that could be his own, because he saw her as tainted by the Comanche he despised. Why the change of heart? Perhaps Ford thought the other outcome too repulsive.

Ethan’s change of heart is short-lived. After returning Debbie and Martin to the Jorgensens. Ethan leaves to wander the Western expanses alone.

Ford’s construction of a truly complex and difficult character gives us endless opportunities for discussion. One of the more interesting touches that Ford gives “The Searchers” is to directly parallel Ethan with Scar.

The two men are the same, but in opposition. Scar took Debbie and killed her family. Later Ethan will take Debbie and kill her adopted family. Debbie was ten when the Comanche took her. She is fifteen when Ethan takes her back.

And you don’t have to take my word for it. Ford makes this parallel visual.

The way each shot is framed and the way the characters are blocked is purposeful, and perfect. These two men are the same, and each destroys the life of the child they descend upon. Does Debbie want to be saved from her life with the Comanche? The same question will drive the end of “Taxi Driver” years later with just as vague an answer.

Ford embeds so much information in his frame and both he and Wayne endow Ethan with such vibrancy, sorrow and hatred that “The Searchers” becomes a touchstone for limitless musings. There are so many questions without clear answers, but Ford poses those questions in such a satisfying way that we feel enriched from the interaction.

Ethan may be a largely unlikeable character, but our lives can be better for knowing him.

Next on the list #11 “City Lights” (1931)

1 Year, 100 Movies #13 Star Wars (1977)

1 Year, 100 Movies #14 Psycho (1960)

1 Year, 100 Movies #15 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

1 Year, 100 Movies #16 Sunset Blvd. (1950)

1 Year, 100 Movies #17 The Graduate (1967)

1 Year, 100 Movies #18 The General (1927)

1 Year, 100 Movies #19 On the Waterfront (1954)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

“Star Wars?” Where do I even start? This is honestly the first time during my long and exhausting journey through AFI’s list that I just want a pass. Can I just pass?

My difficulty with writing critically about “Star Wars” is that I can’t remember a time before “Star Wars.” It has colored my world in some way shape or form forever. It feels like critiquing gravity. It’s not something you critique; it’s something you deal with.

That’s the difficulty now. The fan films, the tie-ins; the toys; the conventions; the “Star Wars” references that every half-hour sitcom from the early eighties on has made; not to mention the sequels, prequels, and spinoffs; all of this just make it overwhelming to talk about the actual film.

Then there’s the fact that I grew up on “Star Wars.” When the film was first released in 1977, then again in 1978 with a new title crawl, my parents were both working. I had a ton of babysitters and those babysitters wanted to see “Star Wars.” With vague calculations and only scattered recollections, I conservatively estimate that I saw “Star Wars” some 15 times in the theater during its ’77 and ’78 releases.

My mother took me out of kindergarten, so that we could go and see “The Empire Strikes Back” on its opening day in 1980 at the Midland in Kansas City, a huge sprawling plush venue reminiscent of the theater in “Annie.”

I can tell you where I sat in the old Glenwood theater, one of only 27 theaters in the nation that screened “Star Wars” before its expanded release, for the opening of “Return of the Jedi” in 1983. The Glenwood is no longer there, but I could probably draw a pretty good overhead-seating chart.

My freshman year in high school was spent watching one of the films from the original trilogy, the only trilogy at the time, every weekday and all three films every Saturday and Sunday for an entire year. I wanted to know these films intimately and wanted to be able to say without a doubt that I had seen each over a hundred times.

Then the new trilogy came out, and wrecked my enjoyment of the original three films. I just couldn’t shake the aftertaste of those poorly conceived, poorly executed, shadows of the earlier films. I had to put “Star Wars” away for a little while.

Now AFI’s list has forced George Lucas back into my life, like an estranged uncle at a family reunion, and I’ve got to say I’m glad to see you again “Star Wars.” It has been too long.

Here are the ground rules. I watched the 1977 cut. This isn’t “A New Hope” this isn’t “Episode IV” this is just a crazy film that some Northern Californian Art Film kid had to get out of his head, whether it ruined his career or not. Lucas’ previous feature length film was “American Graffiti,” which was basically a tonal study of a small rural town in the early 1960s. So making a science fiction space epic was a pretty huge risk. “Star Wars,” his third feature, could just as easily have turned out to be his last.

There were some things going Lucas’ way though. There was a shift in film distribution and exhibition that was trending toward big special effects driven summer blockbusters. This was the infancy of the shift, but “Jaws,” which came just two years earlier in 1975, had been a massive summer hit and the ground swell had started. Lucas’ film promised some of the most advanced and dazzling special effects to date.

What makes “Star Wars” so powerful is, not the overhyped influence that Joseph Campbell’s work had on Lucas as he developed the story, but the apparent love of earlier motion pictures that shines through “Star Wars.” This film is an incredible entry point to many styles, eras and genres of film. There is a solid story, but visually it is built on well constructed and well thought out homage to earlier movies and television shows.

Want a way to get into Japanese cinema? Well how about the way Lucas uses the characters of the bumbling and comedic footservants, a classic trope used in many Japanese period films, to visually narrate “Star Wars.”

It is not accidental or serendipitous that the first main characters we meet are the two droids, C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker). They bookend and punctuate our story with occasional interjections, but for the most part they are here as observers, and they metaphorically (and sometimes literally) tell us the story.

If you want an epic adventure tale of a young farm boy, who stumbles across a hidden message that leads him to a place far from home, a tale that starts like any of the comic book and television serials of Superman, who was a child in Smallville, or like Dorthy Gale on her small Kansas farm, “Star Wars” has got it.

We are all Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to some extent. Mark Hamill’s performance is sometimes stiff and awkward, but I find his foibles endearing. As quick as we are to poke fun at his squeaky voice as he whines about his power convertors, we kind of love it too.

Luke’s a whiner and uncool, and because of this most of us can relate. All of the stronger, hipper, more adventurous kids have taken off to fight the Empire, and Luke is still stuck on the farm. We all grow up in our towns, big or small, and to some extent we want to know what is just beyond the horizon. When a message comes, it peaks our interest and we follow.

But destiny is a tricky thing.

Adventure’s difficult and often what we don’t know scares us. Luckily there is usually a wise and weird old man, in Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) and a bunch of Jawa shooting Stormtroopers to get us motivated.

Alec Guinness is great. The warmth and depth of character that he pours into Ben Kenobi helps bring credibility to the story. No longer are these simply archetypes that fascinate Lucas. With Guinness acting, we get a real person. His performance would earn him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. It would come twenty years after he won the award for Best Actor for “The Bridge on the River Kwai.”

Oh did I mention that if you want the story of hidden royalty, similar to King Arthur’s tale, “Star Wars” has it. It even has its own order of knights, and they’ve got laser swords.

Perhaps the dust and the lawlessness of the old West is your thing. You want the ambivalent gunslinger, who gets caught up in a fight that’s not his own. I think we might have just the scoundrel for you.

In Han Solo (Harrison Ford) we get a more charming version of Sergio Leone’s Man with No Name. Han is an opportunistic smuggler with a heart of gold, and when the Rebellion needs the services of a great pilot or a guy who’s good with a blaster, Han reluctantly steps up to the plate.

Han is the coolest, and I remember that schoolyard conversations would often come around to the question, would you rather be “Jedi” Luke or “Star Wars” Han. If you didn’t want to be teased endlessly, you’d say Han.

Ford’s normal relatively flat performance works for Han. He looks tough and every so often he’ll break into a grin or give you a rousing “Yeeha.” You can’t expect much more from a cowboy.

Let’s not forget about R2’s message. There is still a princess to save from an evil military ruler and a dark lord.

The casting in “Star Wars” is pretty savvy. Lucas has Guinness and Peter Cushing, as Grand Moff Tarkin, in supporting roles. Cushing, with his experience acting in the myriad of horror films that Hammer would crank out, adds a stony faced gravitas to Tarkin. Cushing is not approachable or grandfatherly. There is no negotiating with this Grand Moff.

The strong willed Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) is a compelling female character for science fiction of the late 1970s. Leia helps lead the Rebellion, and never once does she talk about romantic love within the context of the original “Star Wars.” Leia’s not looking for a baby or a man to save her. She faces down her adversaries and though Han and Luke rescue her, their scheme doesn’t go exactly as planned and Leia must improvise so their escape is successful. Lucas will later turn Leia into a brass-bra-wearing cliché, but for now she is strong and self-reliant.

Oh and you say you’d like exciting escapes from pursuing bad guys? If you want a swashbuckling film reminiscent of a Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn movie, “Star Wars” can do that.

Lucas mixes cultures and references with wild abandon. It’s as if he just wanted to get in all of the crazy visuals that would have appealed to him as a young boy. When he made “Star Wars” in 1977, he was still young enough to get it right. Instead of giving us a stereotyped Rastafarian hype man, he gives us a knight fighting a samurai.

Throughout the film, the obstacles that stood in the way of Luke becoming a hero slowly fall away. Uncle Owen (Phil Brown) and Aunt Beru (Shelagh Fraser) die, Luke’s limited view of the world expands, and now in order for Luke to look beyond his reliance on his teacher, Obi-Wan must fall. Luke and the rest of the gang flee the Empire’s battle station in the wake of Ben’s death.

After a meeting to discuss the schematics of the Death Star, the Rebellion mount an attack on the Empire, and “Star Wars” shifts again. Now Lucas gives us a World War dogfight film, where a rag tag bunch of flying aces are going to take on an impenetrable wall of evil.

Though the group of rebels face terrible odds, the spirit of Obi-Wan guides Luke and bolsters his confidence in the Force. That and Han returns for an eleventh hour rescue.

There’s an awards ceremony and everyone is happy at the end, but you all know the story.

“Star Wars” deserves a spot high on AFI’s list now and for some time to come, because it is a showcase of the best of motion pictures from adventure films, television serials, and war movies. This is a sampling of great moments from films that would never make this list otherwise. Lucas’ love and devotion to his artistic medium is awe-inspiring.

Lucas may have become an overstuffed walrus in plaid, but in 1977, he was a badass.

“Star Wars” is not a perfect film. George Lucas was a notoriously terse and blunt director, which translates to some wooden acting performances, but “Star Wars” isn’t a character driven piece. It’s about translating a story with recognizable archetypes that can speak to anyone across cultures, across generations, and across the galaxy.

Next up #12 “The Searchers” (1956)

1 Year, 100 Movies #14 Psycho (1960)

1 Year, 100 Movies #15 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

1 Year, 100 Movies #16 Sunset Blvd. (1950)

1 Year, 100 Movies #17 The Graduate (1967)

1 Year, 100 Movies #18 The General (1927)

1 Year, 100 Movies #19 On the Waterfront (1954)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

You are a charming man, Norman Bates. Your mild manner and meek demeanor are disarming and endearing. Of course we’d like to share a plate of sandwiches and some milk with you, and we’re very sorry if we caused any conflict with your mother.

Alfred Hitchcock, one of the undisputed masters of cinema, is back on AFI’s list for his third, but not final, time with his 1960s stunner “Psycho.” For his earlier offerings check out posts for “North by Northwest” and “Rear Window.”

I have seen “Psycho” in various settings, at different moments in my life, but what came through loud and clear this go round was just how brilliant Anthony Perkins’ portrayal of oedipal shut-in, Norman Bates, is and just how much Hitchcock’s direction disarms and misleads us.

Sure everyone intuitively knows that Perkins is great, that Norman is creepy, but for “Psycho” to be genuinely upsetting and thrilling, Norman must first be sweet, funny, and kind. Norman has so many facets that he could quickly descend into an oversimplified mess, but Perkins maintains complete control over of his character. He and Hitchcock slowly unwrap the truth behind Norman, and reveal the grim present that’s at the heart of “Psycho.”

The story doesn’t begin with Norman. It starts in Phoenix, Arizona with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a middle-aged secretary at a real estate office. As the movie opens, Marion spends her lunch break in a hotel room with her lover Sam (John Gavin), a divorcee who is struggling financially.

When Marion returns to work, a wealthy businessman drops $40,000 on her desk, a cash payment for the house he’s buying for his daughter’s wedding present. Marion tells her boss that she’s off to the bank then home. Instead she pockets the cash and leaves town on her way to Sam.

Up to this point, Hitchcock seems to be laying the groundwork for a detective thriller. Will Marion get away with it? Will she have a change of heart, or will the law catch up to her? She is even pursued by a police officer for a while, but while he turns off at another exit, Marion stops in for an evening with the friendly and kind Norman Bates.

Norman offers a dinner of sandwiches and some pleasant company in the office parlor, which Marion gladly accepts.

Hitchcock starts dropping subtle hints that something’s not quite right, and as the conversation turns to Norman’s mother, we begin to wonder whether Norman is trapped by a controlling invalid, or consumed with his own need to care for her. At Marion’s suggestion that Norman put his mother in an institution, Norman snaps at her briefly.

This particular scene showcases two incredible performances. Leigh must shift Marion ever so slightly from paranoia and escape to remorse and reconsideration as she slowly decides to return the money. Perkins must give the viewer glimpses of a disturbed personality, while maintaining our belief that Norman, though desperately lonely, is harmless.

It is not until Marion has returned to her room and Norman is left in the parlor alone that we see that there may be some truly malevolent parts to his character.

It seems that his mother will have none of it. In her rage, the knife-wielding mother storms off to Marion’s room. While Marion takes a shower, the mother descends upon her.

It has been discussed in many forums just how little Hitchcock actually shows. What he does show us plays in our imagination and creates a visual feedback loop with the onscreen images, which builds until we believe that what we saw was gruesome and gory. Hitchcock doesn’t make his film gory; he makes it feel that way.

Both “Psycho” and Jean Luc Godard’s “Breathless,” which was co-written by François Truffaut and also came out in 1960, employ this dangerous technique to shatter viewer expectations. From this moment in film history on any character, even the ones we are most attached to, is fair game.

Norman, acting as the ever-dutiful son, cleans up after the mother and sinks Marion’s car and body in the nearby swamp. Marion’s disappearance doesn’t go unnoticed for long. Soon Detective Arbogast (Martin Balsam) is snooping around, and the body count grows by one.

There are a number of twists and turns, but finally the less-friendly-than-we-once-thought Norman (and his mother?) is taken into custody. As we listen to the criminal psychologist and the local sheriff, Hitchcock reveals what’s really going on behind the story.

While they talk Norman sits silently in his cell. He is determined to show everyone how docile and harmless he is, that he wouldn’t even hurt a fly.

It is no wonder that Hitchcock, during the film’s initial release, was so stringent about audience members not gaining admittance into the theater after “Psycho” had begun. When you’re changing the rules of the film game, it’s necessary to be a stickler about how we watch a film.

An important film historically, a cultural giant, and a thoroughly watchable and game-changing thriller, “Psycho” is welled placed towards the top of AFI’s list.

Up next #13 “Star Wars” (1977)

1 Year, 100 Movies #15 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

1 Year, 100 Movies #16 Sunset Blvd. (1950)

1 Year, 100 Movies #17 The Graduate (1967)

1 Year, 100 Movies #18 The General (1927)

1 Year, 100 Movies #19 On the Waterfront (1954)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

#15 is a divisive film if ever there was one. It’s been called visionary and transcendent. It’s also been called pretentious and abysmally slow. Regardless of your take, at some point any committed film buff must engage with Stanley Kubrick’s epic space adventure 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Now I think it’s only fair that I come clean about my love and admiration for Stanley Kubrick. I regard him as the leader of a guard of young filmmakers that would dominate American film throughout the 1970s and 80s. He comes before Coppola, Lucas, and Spielberg, and his influence on each of these directors was evident.

Kubrick does not make films for the lowest common denominator or even the average recreational filmgoer. He expects his audience to be smart and savvy. “The Shining” and “Dr Strangelove” may be accessible to a larger audience, but the multiple levels of meaning in each film make them delightful to the film snob as well. Kubrick wants his audience to be bright and well versed in visual language. Nowhere is that sentiment more apparent than in his masterpiece “2001.”

I understand that if you hate “2001,” then there won’t be anything I can do or say that will convince you to love it. So I am not even going to try. All I am going to do is present some images and start the discussion. Feel free to join in on whichever side you choose.

Released in 1968, “2001” was an intellectual collaboration between Kubrick and renowned science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke. Kubrick, after the success of “Dr Strangelove,” wanted to explore ideas surrounding space travel, alien life, and what it means to be a human on Earth and in the universe.

These were ideas that were steeped in the consciousness of the 1960s, but Kubrick also wanted to explore the line that separates humans from the rest of animal kind, and he wanted to ponder the difference between humans now and humans of the future. Kubrick wanted to deal with big themes, perhaps the biggest of themes, but how to represent them visually?

Enter the monolith.

Many critics seem to take a literal approach to the monoliths. They are these strange artifacts left by aliens to propel humanity forward. I think that, though Kubrick and Clarke affirm this view in interviews, such a narrow view of these objects and the later light and special effects driven sequence limits the possibilities within “2001.”

The film is not about getting somewhere it’s about exploring ideas. Just take the scene, in which an ape, after its encounter with the ebony monolith, slowly realizes that a thick bone can be used as a tool.

Throughout the film Kubrick tells the story through his visuals. The flashes of the animal falling, cut with the ape smashing the skeletal remains, shows the intuitive leap that the ape makes.

The tool quickly becomes a weapon used to subdue a rival group. Here Kubrick shows us that the weapon-wielding group hold themselves upright while the rival group, without bone clubs, still crouch like animals.

Kubrick builds “2001” around visual motifs. This leads us to cinema’s largest compression of time through a match cut, when Kubrick jumps from the bone, as it twists in the air, to the space ship, as it orbits the Earth. Both are tools created and used by humans. One just happens to be a bit more advanced.

In outer space Kubrick shows us the beauty and whimsy of human creation, as our satellites engage in a celestial dance.

The music and movement of the spacecrafts do not match perfectly, but they emotionally parallel each other. If the music matched too well then the moment could feel like a joke, instead of a moment of whimsical transcendence.

On the moon, a group of astronauts encounter a monolith, which has been buried there for four million years.

Again we see as Kubrick advances his story visually. There is very little dialogue, and what there is hints at, but never defines the story. The group of astronauts approaches the monolith cautiously at first, and then when all seems safe, they pose for a photo op.

The monolith sends a signal to the depths of space. Another group of astronauts gives chase, seeking the signals destination. It will takes them to Jupiter.

Two astronauts, Dr. Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) and their computer, the HAL 9000, watch over the three other crewmembers in suspended animation as their ship journeys toward the target of the monolith’s transmission.

After a slight miscalculation, HAL becomes concerned that his human companions intend to shut him down. Before they can do this, HAL, using the arms of a small shuttle pod cuts Frank’s air hose while he’s on a space walk. When Dave gets into one of the remaining shuttles to retrieve Frank’s body, HAL shuts down all of the life support systems on the crew in suspended animation. Dave returns to an angry computer and dead crew.

Dave struggles against his computer adversary, and finally shuts down HAL and regains control of the ship, just before his arrival at Jupiter. There he encounters the next monolith.

Though a literal interpretation of the monolith is perfectly reasonable, I prefer a metaphoric approach. I see the monoliths as historical markers, lines in the sand, which mark ruptures or leaps forward within the growth and progress of mankind.

As early humans sit on the verge of tool creation, a monolith appears to mark the event. As humans expand beyond the natural boundaries of their planet, a monolith appears, and later as they encounter alien life, or expand their consciousness from a global to a cosmic perspective again the monolith will appear.

When Dave goes out to interact with the monolith, which orbits Jupiter, it starts the sequence of events that Kubrick titles “Beyond the Infinite.” Kubrick gives us a visually stunning journey through light and motion. All of the effects were practical, and executed through clever photographic tricks or by filming different density liquids as they floated through a large tank. These special effects, which Kubrick developed for “2001” would capture the film’s and Kubrick’s only Academy Award.

We can ponder whether the lights and globular clusters are the alien beings themselves, Dave’s journey through the deep reaches of outer space, or a mind altering state which brings Dave to a new level of consciousness. The metaphor seems work regardless of the individual interpretation. In fact all of “2001” acts like a cinematic Rorschach test, that begs for a multiplicity of interpretations.

Once Dave makes it through the extraterrestrial rabbit hole, he encounters a place that seems to exist outside of linear time. Here he sees himself as a middle-aged, and very old man. In the scenes final moments, again driven by the presence of the monolith, Dave transforms into a fetal child.

This star child returns to Earth. Does he represent the dawn of a new era and new kind of humanity? Probably. Did the aliens transform Dave or was it time for humans to evolve? Sure.

Along with dazzling visuals and perfectly composed shots contained in “2001,” these types of unanswerable questions are what make this film awesome. “2001” makes philosophical thought on the existence of humans tangible and visual. While it never solves any of these existential riddles, the film gives the viewer a huge amount to ponder, and takes us on an eye-popping if not mind-expanding journey through the stars.

Hopefully AFI will keep this film on its list for many years to come. It is what great film should be, an expertly crafted visual experience that entertains while it makes us think.

Up next #14 “Psycho” (1960)

1 Year, 100 Movies #16 Sunset Blvd. (1950)

1 Year, 100 Movies #17 The Graduate (1967)

1 Year, 100 Movies #18 The General (1927)

1 Year, 100 Movies #19 On the Waterfront (1954)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

Most long-lived films have stories that are, at least in part, timeless. They can speak to people across generations, across socio-economic boundaries, across gender. This large accessibility doesn’t mean that the story can’t at the same time be specific, set in a time, place and cultural moment.

#16 on AFI’s list is a stunning artistic achievement that shows the degradation of a former Hollywood star, and the opportunism of a young out-of-work writer. That’s the story that still speaks to us today, but for Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Blvd.” to be as powerful as it is, there is only one historical moment in which it can be made.

The 1930s saw the rise of “talkies,” films with sync sound and on screen dialogue. This of course gave filmmakers new opportunities to tell stories, but at the expense of a class of actors that had seen remarkable success in the silent era.

With sync sound, the overly dramatic and visual quality of the performances didn’t hold with audiences. Add to that the ruthless valuation of youth in the Hollywood system and there were hundreds of actors and filmmakers who were left behind when the ground shifted away from silent films.

In the late 1940s Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett came up with a script about the movie industry. It followed a young writer, Joe Gillis (William Holden), as he becomes trapped by his desire for the comforts of wealth and the alluring Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a fading star of silent films. The beauty of this particular historical moment, the late 1940s, was that there was a wealth of former silent stars to draw from.

The film begins after the death of our protagonist. Joe is found floating in the pool of one of the old Hollywood elite. (Sound starts at 13 seconds.)

Again Wilder employs heavy narration, but without the gritty tone used in “Double Indemnity.” The subtle shift from third person to first person in the narration tells us that our narrator is the young writer, and he’s narrating from beyond the grave. The continued influence of “Sunset Blvd.” is apparent in more recent films like “American Beauty,” which came some fifty years later.

Wilder could not only tell a tale of lost actors, but could use the actual subjects, about whom he was writing. If he were to make this film even ten years later, he would not have had the same pool of talent to draw from. In the late forties he could cast Gloria Swanson, herself a former star of the silent era, as well as fill small roles with other recognizable silent giants such as Buster Keaton, H.B. Warner, Anna Q. Nilsson, and Cecil B. DeMille.

Joe meets Norma when the tire on his car blows and he pulls in the driveway of a seemingly abandoned house. Joe gets welcomed in, mistaken for an undertaker. It seems that Norma’s pet chimp has passed away. Joe recognizes the former silent star, and we get Norma’s critique of an industry that no longer needs her.

“Sunset Blvd.” was Swanson’s first film in eight years. She was 51 when it was released in 1950. So there is an added poignancy in her speech railing against the talk and the color of films. Swanson’s theatricality always hovers near the edge of believability, but her remarkable control as an actor makes this character trait stem from Norma’s anxiety. She is desperate to hold onto her former glory. We always get the sense that Norma is about to break and give way to her growing paranoia and insanity.

Wilder was able to go a step further in blurring the line between fiction and reality. Since Swanson had been a successful actress earlier in life, Wilder was able to surround her with images and trinkets from her glory days, but that’s not all Wilder does. Wilder gives the role of Max Von Mayerling, Norma’s butler, former director and ex-husband, to Erich Von Stroheim, a silent film director, who had directed Swanson in “Queen Kelly” in 1932.

Thus Wilder surrounds Swanson with her own former life at the height of her early career, and out of these ashes, she builds Norma Desmond.

Norma is writing a script for her triumphant return to glory, and hires Joe to fix it. She moves him into the spare bedroom over the garage for the night, but he gets a surprise in the morning when he wakes. All of his belongings have been moved in for him.

He complains about Norma’s presumption, but Joe stays and slowly becomes accustomed to Norma’s generosity and affections. He is kept as a pet, often asked to fetch an ashtray or a drink, while Norma plays bridge with the “waxworks,” the deliciously cruel name Joe gives Norma’s silent film friends.

All of Norma’s fawning control over Joe leads to an outburst on New Year’s Eve. It seems that Joe hasn’t fully embraced his role as kept man.

Most of the scenes, which have come to represent “Sunset Blvd.,” show Norma at the apex of theatricality, but the moment on the couch shows us that Swanson is a master. She is able to blend such a wonderful mix of arrogance, anger and sensitivity into the character of Norma, and she makes this bizarre has-been real. When she slaps Joe and rushes off, this moment of humanity breaks our ability to look at Norma as a laughable icon of the past. She’s a woman who can be hurt, and we understand when Joe can’t leave her.

Joe, Norma and Max visit the Paramount lot. It seems that Norma has been getting a number of calls from an assistant there. She assumes that it’s about her script, so she rushes off to see Mr. DeMille. Unbeknownst to her, it was simply an executive who wants to rent her car for a picture.

While on the lot, Joe runs into Betty (Nancy Olson), a young reader who wants to rework one of Joe’s scripts. Betty wants Joe’s help with the rewrite, but Joe turns her down at first.

Betty is the fresh-faced youngster that distracts Joe, and underlines the stifling dreariness of his relationship with Norma. Olson’s performance is solid, but it is not the caliber of either Holden or Swanson’s.

Joe changes his mind, and begins writing with Betty in the evenings, when Norma has gone to bed. Soon Norma finds out about Joe’s evening escapades. Frantic, Norma calls and threatens Betty. When Joe realizes that his affair with Norma has been exposed, he invites Betty over to Norma’s house.

Joe explains his situation and his relationship with Norma. Betty pleads with him, but Joe has become accustomed to the trappings of wealth. He doesn’t want to be noble, just comfortable. As he walks Betty to the door, Joe tells her that she and her fiancé can be noble together.

Holden owns this scene. He is able to show remorse for the choices he’s made at the same time he claims his decision. There is softness in his delivery mixed with a sternness that will not be swayed by Betty’s pleas. Swanson rightfully gets the lions share of praise in regards to the acting in “Sunset Blvd.,” but Holden is a standout as well.

Joe, touched by Betty’s youthfulness, decides to leave Norma. Consumed with passion, Norma cannot allow this and shoots Joe as he crosses the lawn. Fatally wounded, Joe falls into the pool.

Now Norma descends fully into madness. Surrounded by police and press, Norma believes that she is on the set of DeMille’s new movie. Max offers her a little comfort by playing along with her delusion.

Her slow descent of the staircase is incredible. This scene works on so many levels, from Norma’s assertion that this is her life, nothing else, and her reference to those “wonderful people out there in the dark” to Max’s misty-eyed stare as he watches a woman, who he has loved for years, implode. This is not bald condemnation of Hollywood. This is more subtle, more human, and unquestionably more complex.

A movie about movies was nothing new in 1950. What makes “Sunset Blvd.” so remarkable was Wilder’s ability to use actual people, to reference recent stars and current directors within his story. It was his ability to cut so close to the grain that one could almost mistake his story as pseudo-documentary. That’s why “Sunset Blvd.” is so good, because in an only slightly different world Gloria Swanson could have been Norma Desmond.

Up Next #15 “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968)

1 Year, 100 Movies #17 The Graduate (1967)

1 Year, 100 Movies #18 The General (1927)

1 Year, 100 Movies #19 On the Waterfront (1954)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

I am thoroughly confused. I have encountered films on AFI’s list that were misunderstood at the time of their release, or were panned by their contemporaries only to be lauded by following generations. Just look at “The General,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” or “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” for examples of films that were dismissed or overlooked by critics, but have stood the test of time.

The critical response to #17 “The Graduate” is just plain weird. In 1967 Pauline Kael panned it, Time Magazine called it derivative, and Roger Ebert, in his 1967 review, claimed that the film’s biggest flaw was “the introduction of limp, wordy Simon and Garfunkel songs and arty camera work to suggest the passage of time between major scenes.”

Only Bosley Crowther, the New York Time’s critical curmudgeon, saw the timelessness of “The Graduate” calling it “a film that is not only one of the best of the year, but also one of the best seriocomic social satires we’ve had from Hollywood since Preston Sturges was making them.” This is high praise from a critic who was so off base on “Bonnie and Clyde” that same year.

So critics are wrong from time to time. So what? Later on they’ll eat some crow and come around. Yeah that’s what usually happens, but not so with “The Graduate.”

In 1997 when the film was released on DVD, Ebert, who enjoyed the film in 1967, would admit to being off base on his assessment of the staying power of the film’s soundtrack, but he would also claim to have overvalued the film as a whole. Both Ebert and Robin Dougherty would claim that the main character in “The Graduate,” Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), is not a hero but a bore, and the film itself stands as an “anthem to conformity.”

That’s an assessment that comes with thirty some years of critical perspective.

So why aren’t these critics able to understand the continued power of “The Graduate” or why it is not a “time capsule” as Ebert would claim, but a timeless piece of cinema that cuts across generations? Well I just don’t think they understood what screenwriters Calder Willingham, and Buck Henry, or director Mike Nichols were trying to say.

First off Ben is not a hero, nor is he ever offered as one. He’s our main character, yes, but he’s a melancholy coward, who runs away from the system that badgers and abuses him, never does he engage it head on.

Just check out his graduation party. (Sound starts at 3 seconds.)

Ben starts the scene hiding in his room and ends it there. In his brief excursion into the throngs of partygoers, Ben is bounced around from one person to another, each offering half-hearted praise for achievements they know little about. The advice of “Plastics,” instead of being ironic, as Dougherty would claim, is just the type of vague absurd advice that would come from a middle-aged adult that had already tasted success.

The scrutiny and pressure mixed with listlessness and concern about a future that is no longer planned, this is how all graduates feel to some extent. Ben’s no hero, just a college graduate.

Ben’s weakness makes him vulnerable, and Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), perhaps the most astute and intelligent character in “The Graduate,” takes full advantage.

Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman are so good in this scene. Both are in total control of their characters, but Bancroft brings it all to another level. From the way she bulldozes Ben, forcing a drink upon him and switching on the stereo, to her confident and amused chuckle when Ben accuses her of seducing him, Bancroft’s portrayal of Mrs. Robinson is so fluid and remarkable that we can’t help but adore her.

How could anyone see the meek and underwhelming man-child Benjamin as a hero, as a rebel acting out against an oppressive culture? Ben ultimately only consummates his affair with Mrs. Robinson because she questions his manhood. A more self-assured character, a true rebel may have bedded Mrs. Robinson, but wouldn’t have done so because of a dare.

Ben’s parents continue to lather on the praise and pressure. At his birthday party, Ben becomes a showy spectacle for the amusement of his parent’s friends.

A more poignant visual metaphor for the sense of isolation that consumes those trapped somewhere between childhood and adulthood couldn’t come from Wes Anderson’s wet dream. Ben pleads with his father (William Daniels), who can’t decide whether Ben’s a boy or a man, but Ben finally gives in. Ben only finds relief through the isolation at the bottom of the pool.

Is it any wonder that this loneliness that Ben feels leads to his first evening at the Taft with Mrs. Robinson? The tryst with Mrs. Robinson is no different than the bottom of the pool.

The relationship begins and is illustrated beautifully through a savvy montage. This is some of the “arty camerawork” Ebert called a flaw. (Sound starts at 9 seconds.)

“What was the point of all that hard work?”

“You got me.”

These two lines epitomize the lack of direction that comes with the loss of academic structure. Along with the visual of Ben drifting in the pool, staring at the sun, seeing nothing clearly, Nichols builds a wonderfully layered representation of the no longer young.

Ben’s affair roles on, and he becomes dissatisfied with the loneliness and lack of depth that comes with just physical interaction. Ben wants to have a conversation.

In this scene, Nichols provides us with a huge amount of story. Ben is consumed with the conversation, but Mrs. Robinson faces the viewer. Ben is not privy to her facial expressions, but we can see the pain and remorse that passes over her face. Here is a woman trying to escape from a lifeless marriage and perhaps recapture some of the vibrancy of her youth. Either way Mrs. Robinson is a tragic character that is complex and superbly portrayed by Bancroft.

Ben’s parents pressure him into asking out Elaine (Katharine Ross), Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, though Mrs. Robinson has forbidden it. Ben attempts to distance himself from Elaine by taking her to a strip club, but when he sees that she is upset, he instead apologizes and takes her out for burgers at a local drive-in.

Elaine seems like a more normal option, and a way out of the stifling relationship Ben has with Mrs. Robinson, but when Ben and Elaine make plans for the next day, Mrs. Robinson will have none of it. (Sound starts at 17 seconds.)

If you want to know how to tell a story visually all you need to do is watch this scene over and over. From the slow rack focus that illustrates Elaine’s growing comprehension of the situation to the zoom out on Mrs. Robinson, which leaves her broken and powerless. Nichols’ direction and control of his frame are truly remarkable.

Elaine goes back to Berkeley, and Ben chases after her. This part of the film meanders just slightly, but I often feel that the rest of the film is so tightly packed that it makes these Berkeley scenes seem less masterful. Ben and Elaine reconcile, but her parents, in an effort to keep Ben and Elaine apart, swoop in and force her to marry her college boyfriend.

Ben rushes around frantically trying to find out where the wedding is, and arrives just in time for the final kiss.

From the guitar strum on the cuts to the over the shoulder zoom into Elaine and her new husband, again it’s as if Wes Anderson stole Nichols’ book on directing. There is so much packed into this scene, the silent gnashing teeth, the snide comment from Mrs. Robinson, the gilded cross jammed into the door handles, all of this just layers the scene with meaning and pushes us to the film’s conclusion. Nichols doesn’t cut away while Elaine and Ben are laughing at the back of the bus. That would be the rom-com ending. Instead, He stays with them as the reality of what they’ve just done sinks in.

Ebert said that he cheered for the couple, when he first saw the film. He felt like Ben and Elaine’s final action stood for self-determination and the ability to do what you want to do. It seems he made the same mistake that Tom did in “500 Days of Summer.”

To say, as Ebert and Dougherty do, that “The Graduate” is about whiny self-important children, who don’t take the advice of their well-intentioned parents, is to critique this film from a psychologically old and out of touch position. One could only make this statement if they were so removed from the desperation and crippling anxiety of youth, that they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be asked, “What are you going to do with your degree?” This is a horrifying time made worse when the answer is, “I don’t know.”

Mike Nichols captures this moment, and makes it more powerful because he doesn’t put it in the hands of a flower child or political activist, which would have dated the movie and made it the time capsule that Ebert claims it is. Instead Nichols focuses on a meek and awkward geek, because that’s what we all feel like.

Ben and Elaine are only able to act out and deal with the consequences that follow. The tragic beauty of “The Graduate” is in the fact that no battle is fought, no victory is won. The bus just drives away.

One of my personal favorites and a film I revisit often, I’m glad AFI’s list gave me an excuse to watch “The Graduate” again.

Next up, #16 “Sunset Boulevard” (1950)

1 Year, 100 Movies #18 The General (1927)

1 Year, 100 Movies #19 On the Waterfront (1954)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)

For 1 Year, 100 Movies, contributor/filmmaker Trey Hock is watching all of AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies list (compiled in 2007) in one year. His reactions to each film are recorded here twice a week until the year (and list) is up!

Sometimes people just get it so wrong. Just imagine if Seth Rogen were to star in a thoughtful comedy, which focused on the slow build and the long gag. Instead of always reaching for the quick joke about masturbation or smoking pot, Rogen went for a character driven piece constructed out of bits that took five to ten minutes to unfold and revealed humorous surprises across several scenes. Many would cry foul, and claim that Rogen had lost his touch, that he was better in “Knocked Up.”

So it was with #18, Buster Keaton’s “The General,” a masterful film that wasn’t recognized for its brilliance until some thirty years after its original release.

Reviews at the time “The General” was originally released claimed that the laughs were not plentiful, the main character was stupid and uninteresting, and that Keaton, as writer, director and actor, had bitten off more than he could chew. Just check out this excerpt from Variety’s review published on New Year’s Eve in 1926, which summed up the sentiments of the time.

Its principal comedy scene is built on that elementary bit, the chase, and you can’t continue a fight for almost an hour and expect results. Especially is this so when the action is placed entirely in the hands of the star. It was his story, he directed, and he acted. The result is a flop.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality Keaton had made the transition from vaudevillian to actor and director, and he was using the still young medium of film to a fuller extent of its potential. Keaton relied on what film was capable of to convey subtlety in performance, instead of always going for the overt double take, or theatrical arm waving.

Where before there was only a series of gags, now there was character and story.

In “The General,” Keaton plays Johnny Gray, a Southern railroad engineer in Marietta, Georgia. Johnny’s two loves are his engine, The General, and Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack), a beautiful Southern belle.

When shots are fired at Fort Sumter, Annabelle’s father (Charles Henry Smith) and brother (Frank Barnes), rush off to enlist in the Confederate Army. At Annabelle’s request, Johnny tries to enlist as well, but meets with unexpected opposition. (Music begins at 9 seconds.)

Since Johnny wants to be the first to enlist, he dashes down allies and hurdles tables to make sure that he’s at the front of the line. When he’s rejected, he sizes up the next two in line, who successfully enlist. Keaton uses his acrobatic skill and physical ability to tell the story, but never allows stunt to over power story. This makes the stunts, though thoroughly impressive and mind-bogglingly dangerous, subtle and often magical. Even something as simple as Johnny sizing up the other small enlistee is hilarious and tells the story. There is no question what’s going on in Johnny’s mind.

Johnny is not allowed to enlist. Annabelle’s father and brother see Johnny leaving with out his enlistment slip, and assume Johnny’s a coward. As the father and brother head home to Annabelle, Johnny seeks solace in the company of the General.

This is one of the two or three scenes that are usually shown from “The General” and it’s an impressive stunt, but it only conveys its emotional power if you know that Johnny’s consumed with Annabelle and his train, and that he was unable to fulfill his promise to Annabelle by enlisting. His melancholy is so complete that he is unaware that the train is moving. It is hilarious and touching.

A small band of Union soldiers sneaks into town and steals the General and accidently takes Annabelle hostage. Johnny, intent on rescuing his train and unaware that Annabelle is in any danger, pursues the Union soldiers in another engine. Along the way he picks up a large cannon, but Johnny’s attack goes awry. (Music starts at 9 seconds.)

This scene feels like magic to me. Keaton was known for his stone-faced acting, but if someone were to shout and wave their arms frantically as the cannon bumps and lowers to point right at our hero, then it wouldn’t have the same impact that it does when the cannonball finds its way to the Union soldiers. The tension is more acute because of Keaton’s apparent calm.

Johnny catches up to the Union troops, overhears plans for a sneak attack, and discovers Annabelle. After an awkwardly funny rescue, Johnny and Annabelle run into the woods, only to become lost in the darkness. Here Annabelle expresses her gratitude for Johnny’s daring rescue.

We of course know that, until just moments before, Johnny had no idea that Annabelle was a prisoner. Johnny wanted only to get his beloved General back, but the way his expression changes after Annabelle thanks him for his bravery is wonderful. This is incredible storytelling, and without a single word spoken.

Johnny gets his engine back and escapes, but the Union forces give chase. Johnny and Annabelle slow them down by throwing various objects on the track, but they are forced to stop for firewood. This of course leads to a multi-layered bit which involves Johnny throwing logs into the fuel car, and Annabelle setting up a make shift trap.

Again we see Keaton’s abilities concerning physical comedy, all the while the story chugs along. The split timber throwing makes us laugh, while the pursuit of the Union soldiers makes us tense, and Annabelle’s trap makes us expectant. We are rewarded with a healthy chuckle when the following train smashes into the largely ineffectual trap and our hero and heroine escape with their firewood.

Up until now I haven’t focused on the sheer scope of this ambitious film. Shot in the 1920s, “The General” was a period piece, which took place in the early 1860s. Keaton was a stickler for details, so much so, that he borrowed three antique steam engines and moved his production company to Oregon, where they still had the correct gauge of railroad track. He even tried to use the original General, but the museum that had the engine didn’t think Keaton’s film worthy of the loan.

Keaton performed all of his own stunts and was often running around on top of the moving train, sitting on the cowcatcher, and hurling logs and cannonballs off the engine or fuel car. All his stunts were incredible, but the final stunt tops them all.

Johnny sets fire to a wooden bridge hoping to stop the advancing forces and give the Confederate troops a chance to rally. The Union forces don’t believe that the bridge has burnt through and decide to continue their pursuit.

Don’t scratch your head too much thinking about how Keaton was able to get this unbelievable shot. It’s simple really. He hired 500 extras to act as soldiers, bought a train engine just for this shot, set up something like six or seven cameras, lit the bridge on fire, put a dummy in the engineer’s position, and let the train roll over the bridge and crash into the gorge. This really happened. A stunning achievement to rival D.W. Griffith, and just one glowing example of the passion and genius of Buster Keaton.

When it premiered the film was a flop. People didn’t understand the apparent lack of cheap laughs. They wanted site gags, not story. Luckily in the 1950s, “The General” was rediscovered, in part because in 1952 Keaton was cast opposite to Charlie Chaplin in “Limelight.” Chaplin’s gesture would bring long overdue accolades to Keaton, and renewed interest in the films of this master of physical comedy. Ultimately this late praise resulted in an honorary Academy Award in 1960. Keaton was 65. He would die 6 years later at 71.

I have tried in the past to argue for the power of silent films and I have offered “Modern Times,” “The Gold Rush” and “Sunrise” as possible entry points to the silent era, but “The General” is the only one of the silent films on the list that my wife, Jaime, was able to sit through from beginning to end without complaint, just an occasional delighted gasp, or laugh.

“The General” is so good you’ll forget it’s silent.

Next #17 “The Graduate” (1967)

1 Year, 100 Movies #19 On the Waterfront (1954)

For links to #20-29, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #20 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

For links to #30-39, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #30 Apocalypse Now (1979)

For links to #40-49, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #40 The Sound of Music (1965)

For links to #50-59, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #50 The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

For links to #60 – 69, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #60 Duck Soup (1933)

For links to #70 – 79, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #70 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

For links to #80 – 89, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #80 The Apartment (1960)

For links to #90 – 100, click on 1 Year, 100 Movies #90 Swing Time (1936)