Top Ten American Films of All Time

Let me be the first on behalf of the Kula staff to wish you all a Happy New Year! I was perusing through the New York Times and stumbled upon a top ten best American films list written by Stanely Fish. You can read the article here.

Stan's no filmmaker or even film major (he's a law professor), so his picks by-no-means carry the weight of say Manny Farber, but his article did cause me to think of what my top ten list would include. Hence, this post. I have trouble ranking films, so the list will be in chronological order:

Sunrise (1927), directed by F.W. Murnau. I just recently saw this film for the first time, as it's been hard to find until Fox released it as part of a box set. This "song of two humans" is as timeless as they come. Using the classic story of a husband, wife, and a lover, Murnau is able to capture a certain way of perceiving unique to silent films that can only be described as "dream-like." More than just his superb camerawork (which still remains impressive to this day), Murnau's firm grasp of storytelling and character offer rare glimpses into the unseen. He understands the underlying moral order to our lives and God's vested interest in the affairs of humanity.

City Lights (1931), directed by Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin's always going to bring the funny, but this time he brought the profound as well. The story follows Chaplin's lovable tramp as he befriends a rich man and falls in love with a blind girl. Although one of his more serious works, this one's still full of laughs. His interactions with the drunk rich man and of course the boxing scene stick out in my memory. It's interesting to note that Sunrise came out soon after The Jazz Singer, the first "talkie" (read: film with audio), while Chaplin's City Lights was his first film in the sound era. It seems strangely fitting that silent film would produce two of its best examples while on its death bed.

Stagecoach (1939), directed by John Ford. Orson Welles was said to have watched this movie forty times before making Citizen Kane and I can see why. Ford was a pioneer of the classical continuity style that is now used in 99.9% of films made today. The story is based on a famous short story by Guy de Maupassant called "Ball-of-Fat" that's about a prostitute who is surrounded by a band of rich people during a trip through enemy territory during the Franco-Prussian war. Ford doesn't include the scathing critique of French society found in "Ball-of-Fat," but even without its fangs, Stagecoach still includes much of the truth about human nature found in Maupassant's brilliant short story.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), directed by Frank Capra. There's an empty Senate seat and the governor of Illinois attempts to auction it off to the highest bidder – wait, no that's not a movie, that's real life. You couldn't make that stuff up, but you could make up a story of a Boy Ranger leader (the Boy Scouts wanted no part of Capra's vision for reform) who is chosen to be a pawn in some dirty (is there any other kind?) politicians' game. Despite all the temptations the world can offer, Jimmy Stewart does the right thing and in the process reminds everyone of what it is to be human.

The Killers (1946), directed by Robert Siodmak. Based on short story by Ernest Hemingway, the film has been made numerous times, in both feature length (Don Siegel) and short (Andrei Tarkovsky) forms. At the center of the film is the mystery behind the murder of a lowly gas station attendant. As the story unfolds, Siodmak gives an acute portrait of desperation, which is no stranger to the noir genre. The film is tragic, but just – everything you'd expect from a good noir.

Rear Window (1954), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. There are many great films by the master of suspense, but none as succinct and unerring as this one. The entire film takes place inside one apartment complex, mirroring the physical limitations of its protagonist, Jimmy Stewart – a photographer with a bum leg. Both parodied and remade by The Simpsons and that hack D.J. Caruso [Disturbia (2007)] respectively, the plot is well-known: a man suspects his neighbor is guilty of murder and attempts to solve the crime by stalking him through his window. The difference between the imitations and the real thing is the impressive economy in which Hitchcock tells the story. One of the few perfect films ever made.

The Searchers (1956), directed by John Ford. His second film on the list is one of the greatest westerns ever made. I debated between including this or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962), as it's been a while since I last saw either film, but I knew that one of Ford's westerns after Stagecoach (1939) deserved to be included. Ford knows westerns and John Wayne was made for them. I appreciate the moral ambiguities this time around; as good and evil are never as clear as they seem to be. I also cannot not to mention the incredible cinematography. The visual lyricism achieved in this film is unparalleled in most westerns, let alone most films. The intro scene with the doorway definitely comes to mind.

The Ten Commandments (1956), directed by Cecille B. DeMille. When the Bible is done right in film, it's an extrodinary thing. DeMille was once quoted saying something along the lines of, "Give me a page out of the Bible and I'll give you a film." He took one of the greatest stories ever told and gave it new life. The scene where Moses unknowingly saves his birth mother is one of the most touching illustrations of mercy committed to film [the other being in Kurosawa's High and Low (1963)]. Although the scene is not in the Bible per se, it is definitely in the Spirit of the words and reflects the Truth found in the book. I think no higher praise can be given to a film.

Ben-Hur (1959), directed by William Wyler. Of course the famous chariot race scene comes to mind, (which I think is still one of the greatest action set pieces of all time) but what's at the heart of the film is a story of a man trying to preserve his soul despite having all the evils of the world poured out in his path. In a way his story echoes that of Christ's, as the Son of Man met great opposition to save every soul, ultimately overcoming death and overwhelming the grave. I guess that's why the tagline of the film is "A Tale of the Christ."

Badlands (1973), directed by Terrence Malick. What's more American than murder? Terry Malick's portrait of a murderer is unique in its objectivity to subjectivity. He was quoted as saying that Kit (the murderer) used his gun as a magic wand to make his problems go away. This child-like logic is not unlike the dream-like logic I refered to in my review of Sunrise. There's something very pure and very lyrical about Malick's portrait of the murderous youths that creates a certain empathy without resorting to the lazy psycho-babble present in lesser works like Rebel Without a Cause (1955).

When making this list, I was tempted to include more frivolous affair like The Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), but I think there is something to be said about the films that reveal what is timeless about our experience here on earth.

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Dziga Vertov Group's Schick Commercial

1971. Color. 53 secs

Jean-luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin signed an advantageous contract with the Ad Agency Dupuy-Compton, they got paid as long as they propose a project per month and to shoot one of those ideas at least once a year. For this Schick commercial, they obtained the budget to pay for a week's worth of production but only took half a day to shoot the thing. Who knows what they used the rest of the money for.

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Manny Farber and All That Jazz

Just wanted to share this very insightful and distinct look into Manny Farber. Written by JP Gorin for the Manny Farber tribute which was held at Atkinson Hall (UCSD) on May 13th 2006.


At the core of this evening, a few simple precepts:

1. It is impossible to reconcile the name Farber and the word ‘tribute’ and the absurdity of heaping praise on such an artful cliché-dodger is self-evident. Yet once this impossible mandate has been accepted, apply to Farber’s work his own critical medicine: burrow into the work, extend the evening, collaging it with pace changes, multiple tones, and get as many different voices into it as possible.

2. Let the paintings be seen. Let the paintings be seen. Let the paintings be seen. Camp at Calit2. Make massive use of digital technology. Sacrifice as many animal farms as possible to this often inclement God, cross one’s fingers for computers not to crash, for smooth transitions and change-over, and savor the irony of using 4k wizadry to further the understanding of someone who is fundamentally a quill and ink, scissors and paste guy.

3. If and when the machine breaks down, remain persuaded that the evening would then achieve a true “Farberian” gait. In short, use whatever happens to endorse the be-bop dissonant harmony inherent to so many of Farber’s written and painted pieces.

4. Reset the clocks. Manny Farber is not a film critic who renounced film criticism and switched to panting. The absurd condescension that puts a hobbyist tag on Farber’s work simply denies its uniqueness. Farber is this extraordinary case of someone equally fluent in two practices, painting and writing, that inform and modify each other incessantly. It is his existence at the confluence of these two practices that makes his work so layered, contradictory, polyphonic. In short, a.l.i.v.e.

5. Reset the clocks. Manny Farber is not a film critic. To see him as a film critic is as absurd as seeing the philosopher Gilles Deleuze as a film critic when he writes Cinema: The Movement Image or The Time Image. Deleuze thinks via films through some fundamental problems raised by his practice as a philosopher. Farber is a painter and a writer who turned to film because film allowed him to ask and solve some fundamental questions raised by his practice as a painter and a writer. In short, thank you very much, like Walter Benjamin and a few others, Farber is a child of the century.

6. Reset the clocks. Manny Farber’s paintings are NEVER homage to the films or film directors he analyzed. They are always a meditation on how a film practice that essentially defines the function of the image as passage and disappearance could transform the practice of painting that has traditionally defined the image as appearance and fixity. Lo and behold, the meditation paid off: looking at a Farber painting is to be seduced and trapped by systems of motion.

7. Reset the clocks. Manny Farber is not a diaristic painter. By this account Cezanne would be sent to the same hell for painting apples or traipsing to the Mont Saint Victoire. A handwritten note on the canvas is not simply a laundry note (however witty, cryptic, etc.) but an enticement to read that gets frustrated by an upside-down placement on the canvas, its half erasure, or simply the nervousness and speed of the trace. Speed, speed, speed, at all cost… style, style, style over content any time of the day.

8. Reset the clocks. There is a fundamental playfulness and a pervading sense of pleasure that every inch of a Farber painting or article communicates. Try to get some of it on the way this evening will function. As Farber would say, “Go for tricks.”

9. Reset the clocks. One of the glories of Farber’s work is that exists as a result of his constant interaction with the painter and writer Patricia Patterson. Stress how essential she has been in the elaboration of the Farber machine (choices of colors, patterns, words, sense of when a piece of writing or a painting has gelled and needs to be left alone). Risk the hypothesis that one should talk about Farber/Patterson as one talks about Straub/Huillet.

10. Strive to create an evening that does not only talk about Farber, but functions as a Farber, and leave the audience with this sense, diffuse or clear.

-- Jean Pierre Gorin

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Manny Farber, 1917-2008

This is awful news not just because Manny Farber is arguably one of, if not the best American film critic but I know a really good friend of his that is probably taking this pretty hard. It was disappointing knowing that I missed his lectures at UCSD by a couple of years but I take pleasure in that the DVDs I copied somehow made it to him.

08.18.08
Manny Farber, an American painter and film critic, has died. A contributor to the New Republic, Time, The Nation, Film Comment, and Artforum, Farber’s reviews of and essays on films were compiled in several collections, including Negative Space. An early champion of American B movies, in 1962 Farber coined the phrase “termite art” to describe art that “seems to have no ambitions toward gilt culture” and “leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity.” Susan Sontag once said, “Manny Farber is the liveliest, smartest, most original film critic this country has ever produced . . . [his] mind and eye change the way you see.” As a painter, Farber was as restless as the films he championed in his writing, and moved from abstraction to narrative work in the 1970s and '80s. A retrospective of his paintings originated at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in 2003 and traveled to the Austin Museum of Art and the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York. Farber’s art is in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

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Chris Marker Store (sort of)

Chris Marker has his own store...

And is selling 4 previously unreleased essay films. Though the official street date for these DVDs isn't until 2 September, Icarus Films has allowed the Wexner Center for the Arts exclusive pre-release sales of these titles via their Chris Marker Online Store.

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What happened to my peurile dream?

When my friend John said that I should write for this blog, I got really excited. I've been meaning to start one, to dedicate to fashion. He said the blog is intended to discuss about art and film, I was disappointed for a sec. Then I realize I was once passionate about film, still am but more of an admirer rather than a contributor. What happened...

Before I graduated from UCSD, I dreamed of becoming a kick-ass female film director (yes, exactly that description). I would be directing music videos in flavor of Let Forever Be by Michel Gondry and independent films like Run Lola Run, Amelie, Real Woman have Curves, and Saving Face. I once quoted:" I want to marry Michel Gondry's brain." and Alice Wu (director of Saving Face) was my idol. Michel Gondry is so innovative and Alice Wu is just inspirational! She went to school for computer science, worked for Microsoft in Seattle then switched her career path to film when she turned 30. She wrote her script in two weeks and sent it in for a contest. Why wouldn't that be inspirational. Though some parts of the Saving Face was cheesy, but she really captured the essence of a bi-cultural family, grandparents included.

I wanted to work on films about love, becoming-of-age stories, new age females, my thorn-in-the-butt parents, bi-cultural experience(done the right way), the after effects of politics on life and of course it has to have kick-ass music to accompany with.

I never got interested in film till I had to take film classes for my prerequisites in college. I was introduced to various arty films around the world and I got molded into thinking about how every angle was shot when watching a film.Then I got to make my own little film projects for my media classes. I thought,"Forget about graphic design," - not that they teach you anything about "Design" anyway. :/ I even had the opportunity to study Spanish Film in Madrid - the best summer ever and now I know everything about Pedro Almodovar.

To be continued...

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Watching a Todd Hayne's film? I'm not there...

Back in December, I had the choice between seeing Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and I'm Not There. A part of me always regretted choosing Before the Devil (see post), but after watching Todd Hayne's latest biopic, I now realize I should have gone home that night.

Alternating between campy and cryptic, the film suffers from tonal inconsistencies. One moment you're watching "Arthur Rimbaud" at a McCarthy-esque hearing, the next you're in the middle of a Christopher Guest film with Julianne Moore pretending to be Joan Baez. In one word: senseless.

One could make the argument that Haynes is trying to make the filmic equivalent of a Bob Dylan song with its cobbling together of various pop culture references. The only problem is that Dylan's a much better songwriter than Haynes a filmmaker.

Every cloud has a silver lining and in this case it comes in the form of Cate Blanchett's performance as "Jude Quinn," the Pennebaker Don't Look Back Dylan. At one point, she's attacked by a disgruntled fan while her entourage stands back in fear. Before she's stabbed, some blonde chick brakes a vase over the head of the would-be attacker. Cate responds, "Just like a woman." There's just something very funny about a woman being a man being a misogynist.

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Wes Anderson's New Masterpiece

I'm not even going to bother searching for a cap for this film. T (or Joe, if you're still around), you guys can put in a screen shot if you want.

15 minutes in I found myself booting up Contra 4 on the DS. An hour later, I came to two conclusions: 1. The machine gun is the best gun. Ever. 2. The Darjeeling Limited is bad in every way that Contra 4 isn't.

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Quite a City

The other night me and the gang went on an aimless and ultimately fruitless journey into the heart of Silverlake to see all the fun we've been missing out on living in Walnut. Apparently there's not much.

Other than some tight pants and hoodies I can't say life's much different place to place, yet I've been noticing this flight of the young and anxious to places like NYC or Frisco. It reminds me of this Bruce Springsteen song that goes something like, "There's something happening somewhere, baby I just know that there is."

Unrest is a funny thing. I was watching the new mumblecore darling Quiet City and it almost fooled me into thinking New York was the place for me. Something about brick buildings and bookcases stir the soul I guess.

The film's not bad. I can describe its success in one word: humble. John said something about how Away From Her worked best when the director stopped trying to be a filmmaker and just let it happen. The same could be said of Quiet City. There's some loose, yet elegant form going on like having a loud and raucous score play over the title "Quiet City" that's nothing to write home about, but effective in its simplicity.

I saw Belle de Jour for the second time earlier this week too. I appreciated the sound design much more this time around. All those bells and meows reminded me of something I forgot about. I think I should take breaks from watching only the masters though. Sometimes something contemporary can serve as a nice reminder of setting the bar a little lower.

A humble film will be my next film.

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The Kula is NOT dead. (It's just resting.)

So I just came back from my church's winter retreat and what did I find on my living room table but the new Radiohead album box set I ordered a while back. I can't really say that I wanted the box set, but the guilt from downloading the album for free was too much to bear. Now that it has arrived, I'm very glad for my guilty purchase.

Back when I first stumbled upon the benefits of vinyl, I came to this epiphany about how the act of flipping a record changes the way an album is digested. Since there's only a finite amount of physical space and no way of making grooves smaller without losing quality (ie mono), each side of a record is limited to around fifteen minutes. (This is just a tangent, but the first track "15 Step" may have been titled after this fact.)

Anyway, so here I am listening to In Rainbows on vinyl and it's like I'm listening to a whole new album. In addition to the digestion thing, there's this degree of separation you can hear on vinyl that you can't on mp3s or even CDs. I think it's because of how the encoding on CDs (and even more so in mp3s) takes some sound out of original recording to shrink the size of the file. I'm no techie, but it has something to do with if say a guitar makes one sound that overwhelms the other instruments, the encoder just takes out those instruments because in theory you can't hear them anyway. But as in most things, theory is just not reality.

So yeah, the degree of separation is so great that a lot of sounds I chalked up to be electronic instruments were actually revealed to be guitars. Makes me realize the full extent of their appropriating electronica tropes for the purpose of rocking out.

I wish everyone still had record players and could hear what I hear, but since we don't, a good way to at least get the digestion effect is to listen to the album in the following intervals:

15 Step
Bodysnatchers
Nude

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
All I Need
Faust Arp

Reckoner
House of Cards

Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Videotape

So there you have it. If you take pauses in between these intervals, you'll notice a clear order to the tracks that I feel is otherwise absent in a straight-through (ie CD/mp3) listen. If you're a believer in the idea of music as a sonic experience/soundscape then you'll appreciate this new way to say hooray.

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