Five Best Years of Cinema
Oct. 22nd, 2008 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
syndyfrellaby Screenhead.com
5. 1939
In 2000 a survey amongst film experts and fans discovered that most felt 1939 was the best year in cinema’s history, the start of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Indeed, Gone With the Wind is not only a household name, but it remains the best selling film of all time, adjusting for inflation of course, making an equivalent of 1.4 billion dollars in the US alone. The Wizard of Oz barely looks its age, as it’s so ingrained in our collective consciousness. Plus, three of the USA’s most enduring and liked actors were becoming huge by this year, with Cary Grant’s Only Angels Have Wings, John Wayne’s Stagecoach, and Jimmy Stewart’s rousing tale of one man inspiring the government, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But perhaps the true highlight of the year was Jean Renoir’s La Regle du Jeu, a pointed satire on the insincerity of upper classes, which remains unequalled in its biting satire.
4. 2001
Just to show that I’m not one of those naysayers who say “it’s not like the old days”. The year that changed the Western World and brought the concept of terrorism to the forefront of our minds also happened to be ripe with aesthetic creativity. The Royal Tenenbaums was a poignant comedy with a great ensemble of actors. David Lynch made his masterpiece Mulholland Drive, a story about love, loss and identity crisis, all connected to the dream world of Hollywood and its detrimental attrraction. At a time when hollow celebrity is rampant, the film couldn’t have been more appropriately released.
Spielberg realised Kubrick’s last film, the interesting but flawed AI. Monster’s Inc broke records, and boasts one of the best endings of any animation ever. Jean Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie proved that there is still imagination in French cinema. Alfonso Cuaran kick-started his international career with the success of the bawdy yet socially aware Y Tu Mama Tambien. Ghost World and Donnie Darko proved that there was still potential for the US indie cinema scene (which since hasn’t been realised). But of course, the one film most of us were interested in was the first part of a trilogy of films that people had been long waiting for, and most agree that The Fellowship of the Ring was worth the wait. Oh, and there was some kid called Harry Potter.
3. 1941
1941 was the year the USA decided to get involved in WWII, after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Casablanca was an allegory for this involvement, but that was to see its release the following year. This year is probably best known for Citizen Kane, a consistent favourite in most cinephiles’ lists. Radio and stage actor/director Orson Welles decided to take on cinema, and through his attention to European film and using the subject matter of the media, he managed to reinvent American cinema, making it more technically expressive and playful with narrative. It’s no wonder the film was a box office bomb at the time, winning only a best screenplay Oscar at the time.
The year also saw the explosion of the film noir genre, with the release of classic examples such as John Huston’s impressively atmospheric debut, The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart, as well as High Sierra, Alfred Hitchcock’s tense Suspicion, Manpower, and The Shanghai Gesture. Social themes cropped up in Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe, and in Preston Sturges’s remarkable and reflecting drama Sullivan’s Travels, in which a naive Hollywood director goes on a journey to make a “real film” about humanity’s suffering, only to discover the true power of his usual slapstick comedies. And for the kids, Dumbo was a box office hit which ensured Disney’s place as one of the most powerful studios in history.
2. 1967
It took the world of cinema a while to catch up with the counterculture that was quickly becoming mainstream. While the Summer of Love had people denouncing the norm, whether it was the Vietnam War, drug intolerance, or sexual repression, 1967 was the first year to see cinema break free from its studio-based, Technicolor shackles. Films like Bonnie and Clyde and Point Blank felt grittier and unwilling to adhere to a typical 3-act structure. Race issues were being tackled in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night.
Outside of the US French cinema produced some its most iconic films, including Le Samurai, Bunuel’s exploration about the trauma of passive female sexuality, Belle de Jour, and Jacques Tati’s fascinating and elaborate silent comedy of modern life’s anxieties, Playtime, in which the director virtually constructed his own city to manipulate.
The biggest surprise was the hit of The Graduate, a modest comedy about a disenfranchised student who gets sexually involved with his parents friends, before getting embroiled with her daughter. It propelled Dustin Hoffman into the spotlight, eschewing the typical male star that was either handsome or a tough guy. Hoffman was short, odd looking, and nervous, making him instantly accessible for us human beings.
1. 1974
If the late 60’s saw a rebellion against the norm by immersing the self in unrestricted pleasure, the 1970’s was the comedown from that. The combined the narrative experimentation of previous years with the big bucks of Hollywood studios, often resulting in films expressing a paranoia towards society, corporations (such as 74’s The Parallax View), and a government that can’t be trusted (prompted by the assassination of JFK and continuing through 74’s Watergate scandal).
Despite the popularity of disaster films, the 70’s saw the rise of America’s auteurs, and 1974 saw the release of Scorsese underrated Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Cassavetes’s upsetting A woman Under the Influence, and Polanski’s classic noir Chinatown. But it was Francis Ford Coppolla who excelled in this year. Not only did he make Oscar-winning classic The Godfather Part 2, which is as good as the original, but in the same year he released The Conversation, the ultimate conspiracy thriller starring Gene Hackman as a man trying to record a potentially life-threatening discussion between two strangers.
Not only that but the box office lit up with Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles, offering alternatives to the doom and gloom, and even the generic thrillers were exemplary, such as the downbeat Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and the wonderfully enjoyable The Taking of Pelham 123, which is getting a sacrilegious make-over next year, with Denzel Washington playing Walter Matthau’s character.
Europe’s legendary directors were also in peak form, with Fellini’s last great film Amarcord getting released worldwide, Bunuel’s playful The Phantom of Liberty, and Werner Herzog’s story of a man born into nature, The Enigma of Kasper Hauser.
Quite simply, 1974 was a stunning year for cinema, both in and outside of the USA. It was a time when the old greats had their last great moments, while upcoming legends took their first steps up the peak. If I was alive to see these movies on their initial release, I would have been too busy in the theatre to hear about Nixon’s resignation, revolution in Portugal, the destruction of Darwin, and the Birmingham Six.
—————————————————
A nod of approval must be cast towards for 1966 (Battle of Algiers, Persona, Andrej Rublev, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), 1962 (Lawrence of Arabia, Yojimbo, The Manchurian Candidate), and 1980 (Raging Bull, The Shining, The Elephant Man).
5. 1939
In 2000 a survey amongst film experts and fans discovered that most felt 1939 was the best year in cinema’s history, the start of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Indeed, Gone With the Wind is not only a household name, but it remains the best selling film of all time, adjusting for inflation of course, making an equivalent of 1.4 billion dollars in the US alone. The Wizard of Oz barely looks its age, as it’s so ingrained in our collective consciousness. Plus, three of the USA’s most enduring and liked actors were becoming huge by this year, with Cary Grant’s Only Angels Have Wings, John Wayne’s Stagecoach, and Jimmy Stewart’s rousing tale of one man inspiring the government, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But perhaps the true highlight of the year was Jean Renoir’s La Regle du Jeu, a pointed satire on the insincerity of upper classes, which remains unequalled in its biting satire.
4. 2001
Just to show that I’m not one of those naysayers who say “it’s not like the old days”. The year that changed the Western World and brought the concept of terrorism to the forefront of our minds also happened to be ripe with aesthetic creativity. The Royal Tenenbaums was a poignant comedy with a great ensemble of actors. David Lynch made his masterpiece Mulholland Drive, a story about love, loss and identity crisis, all connected to the dream world of Hollywood and its detrimental attrraction. At a time when hollow celebrity is rampant, the film couldn’t have been more appropriately released.
Spielberg realised Kubrick’s last film, the interesting but flawed AI. Monster’s Inc broke records, and boasts one of the best endings of any animation ever. Jean Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie proved that there is still imagination in French cinema. Alfonso Cuaran kick-started his international career with the success of the bawdy yet socially aware Y Tu Mama Tambien. Ghost World and Donnie Darko proved that there was still potential for the US indie cinema scene (which since hasn’t been realised). But of course, the one film most of us were interested in was the first part of a trilogy of films that people had been long waiting for, and most agree that The Fellowship of the Ring was worth the wait. Oh, and there was some kid called Harry Potter.
3. 1941
1941 was the year the USA decided to get involved in WWII, after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Casablanca was an allegory for this involvement, but that was to see its release the following year. This year is probably best known for Citizen Kane, a consistent favourite in most cinephiles’ lists. Radio and stage actor/director Orson Welles decided to take on cinema, and through his attention to European film and using the subject matter of the media, he managed to reinvent American cinema, making it more technically expressive and playful with narrative. It’s no wonder the film was a box office bomb at the time, winning only a best screenplay Oscar at the time.
The year also saw the explosion of the film noir genre, with the release of classic examples such as John Huston’s impressively atmospheric debut, The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart, as well as High Sierra, Alfred Hitchcock’s tense Suspicion, Manpower, and The Shanghai Gesture. Social themes cropped up in Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe, and in Preston Sturges’s remarkable and reflecting drama Sullivan’s Travels, in which a naive Hollywood director goes on a journey to make a “real film” about humanity’s suffering, only to discover the true power of his usual slapstick comedies. And for the kids, Dumbo was a box office hit which ensured Disney’s place as one of the most powerful studios in history.
2. 1967
It took the world of cinema a while to catch up with the counterculture that was quickly becoming mainstream. While the Summer of Love had people denouncing the norm, whether it was the Vietnam War, drug intolerance, or sexual repression, 1967 was the first year to see cinema break free from its studio-based, Technicolor shackles. Films like Bonnie and Clyde and Point Blank felt grittier and unwilling to adhere to a typical 3-act structure. Race issues were being tackled in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night.
Outside of the US French cinema produced some its most iconic films, including Le Samurai, Bunuel’s exploration about the trauma of passive female sexuality, Belle de Jour, and Jacques Tati’s fascinating and elaborate silent comedy of modern life’s anxieties, Playtime, in which the director virtually constructed his own city to manipulate.
The biggest surprise was the hit of The Graduate, a modest comedy about a disenfranchised student who gets sexually involved with his parents friends, before getting embroiled with her daughter. It propelled Dustin Hoffman into the spotlight, eschewing the typical male star that was either handsome or a tough guy. Hoffman was short, odd looking, and nervous, making him instantly accessible for us human beings.
1. 1974
If the late 60’s saw a rebellion against the norm by immersing the self in unrestricted pleasure, the 1970’s was the comedown from that. The combined the narrative experimentation of previous years with the big bucks of Hollywood studios, often resulting in films expressing a paranoia towards society, corporations (such as 74’s The Parallax View), and a government that can’t be trusted (prompted by the assassination of JFK and continuing through 74’s Watergate scandal).
Despite the popularity of disaster films, the 70’s saw the rise of America’s auteurs, and 1974 saw the release of Scorsese underrated Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Cassavetes’s upsetting A woman Under the Influence, and Polanski’s classic noir Chinatown. But it was Francis Ford Coppolla who excelled in this year. Not only did he make Oscar-winning classic The Godfather Part 2, which is as good as the original, but in the same year he released The Conversation, the ultimate conspiracy thriller starring Gene Hackman as a man trying to record a potentially life-threatening discussion between two strangers.
Not only that but the box office lit up with Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles, offering alternatives to the doom and gloom, and even the generic thrillers were exemplary, such as the downbeat Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and the wonderfully enjoyable The Taking of Pelham 123, which is getting a sacrilegious make-over next year, with Denzel Washington playing Walter Matthau’s character.
Europe’s legendary directors were also in peak form, with Fellini’s last great film Amarcord getting released worldwide, Bunuel’s playful The Phantom of Liberty, and Werner Herzog’s story of a man born into nature, The Enigma of Kasper Hauser.
Quite simply, 1974 was a stunning year for cinema, both in and outside of the USA. It was a time when the old greats had their last great moments, while upcoming legends took their first steps up the peak. If I was alive to see these movies on their initial release, I would have been too busy in the theatre to hear about Nixon’s resignation, revolution in Portugal, the destruction of Darwin, and the Birmingham Six.
—————————————————
A nod of approval must be cast towards for 1966 (Battle of Algiers, Persona, Andrej Rublev, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), 1962 (Lawrence of Arabia, Yojimbo, The Manchurian Candidate), and 1980 (Raging Bull, The Shining, The Elephant Man).
