i know my explainations are long as hell, feel free to ignore them. they're only really important if you want to understand the criteria of my choices.
1) Last Year at Marienbad / L’Annee derniere a Marienbad (1961) – While very much being a prototypical “art film”, it diverts from the stigma of the art film as “pointless” or “needlessly convoluted”. Marienbad, unlike all the films that are derided for pretentious difficulty, is a film that is in fact easy to understand, just in nineteen different ways. No film displays the ability to accurately depict a particular version of a story, while depicting many, many other versions. Rather than having no truth, like Rashoman, Marienbad has every truth. Add the purposefully flawed soundtrack, the wonderful editing (Henri Colpi) and the breathtaking cinematography (that of the greatest DP in film history, Sacha Vierny), and Marienbad shows any film student that they should not limit themselves in what they wish to say. N.B. Volker Schlondorff is the assistant director on this film.
2) La Grande illusion (1937) – Along the lines of many classic films, most aspects of Renoir’s film are perfect. The most important aspects of this film are its ability to alter the common perception of how the plot should work within the story’s framework, subverting the war genre and the way enemies relate. Also, this is the first film that I’ve found myself walk away from with little impression or comment, but noticing a lingering, intense gut feeling that this won’t leave me. Its humanistic themes and the way they pervade show filmmakers how an important thematic drive can make or break a film.
3) Eraserhead (1977) – Like Grande illusion, Eraserhead relies on the thematic drive and aura of the film. What makes it unique is its desire to make the viewer uncomfortable. It is one of the hardest films to get through, not because of shocking content (not that some of it isn’t shocking) but just because it exudes discomfort. Lynch’s debut proves that films not only need not make the audience feel good, or even entertained, but can hurt them, and be beautiful for doing so.
4) Alphaville (1965) – Godard’s film should be the first screening of any genre studies course. Alphaville is the flagship film studies film. Only in Alphaville are so many genres evoked, subverted and ridiculed. It also satirizes the art form of film through its jokingly gratuitous sexualization of women and haphazard attempt to maintain coherent set design. Alphaville is a film studying film, and it points out much of what is and is not important in film.
5) Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1976) and Les Parents terribles (1948) – These films, by Chantal Akerman and Jean Cocteau, can teach young filmmakers how the frame and the camera can control what the audience thinks and feels. Cocteau’s use of tight close-ups and two shots which are constantly invaded by a character from off screen express the claustrophobia of the main character better than the script ever could. Akerman’s film, which uses a plot where little or nothing catches your eye and the every day chores are focused upon, drags the viewer out of their desired interest and into her own. Using the focus of the camera, Akerman forces the audience to take interest in the ordinary, making the slight changes that come in the late reels more shocking than many a twist ending (even that of Jeanne Dielman). These films show the difference between a novelist and a filmmaker. Where the plot fails (even if by choice) the shot succeeds.
(very sorry for this)