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357 said:
Unforgiven
Shane
The Shootist
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Now we're talking! Sorry, I deleted Last Samurai -- too new for perspective. But all three of the above were great efforts. Maybe Shane is the best western of all time, which is saying a lot when you think of Unforgiven, My Darling Clementine, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, and especially The Searchers. Dunno if I'd put The Shootist in the greatest category, but as a big fan of John Wayne's (especially his John Ford collaborations, if you haven't guessed), it's quite a valentine.
I think George Stevens must have really been in "the zone" in the early 50s--he followed Shane with Giant, and that'd be right up there for me. What a one-two punch from Stevens.
I often wonder about film greatness. There are some movies that you watch and say, wow, profound. But,you never want to watch them again (Coppola's The Conversation is like that for me, and I know it's a real critic's darling). But, I NEVER get tired of watching Shane. I can hear the explosiveness of the gunshots right now (a gimmick Stevens used to really enhance the boom). The realistically deep rutted Wyoming streets. The unspoken "thing" between Shane and Starrett's wife. The sinister Jack Palance. That movie took the cake, perfect in every way.
There are quite a few movies I enjoy again and again that have a lot of style and storytelling to them, Jeremiah Johnson is one. "You've done well, pilgrim, to have come so far with so much hair when so many are after it..."
I'd also add some of the Coen brother's films, Fargo typifying them. Kubrick's 2001. Godfather I & II. Gone With The Wind. Casablanca's already been called out. Ten Commandments, just something about it, even though it could be described in parts as being "over the top." To Kill a Mockingbird (WOW!). I think years down the road critics will re-visit Dances with Wolves and think that was a classic (I know it won best film, but so did Around the World in 80 Days). Some of those early 50s Jimmy Stewart/Anthony Mann on-location films were great ones, a great combo of direction and some very convincing bad-*** performing by Stewart, Man From Laramie, The Naked Spur, The Far Country, and Bend of the River (probably not "greatest" but all-time classics for sure). Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West is right up there -- the spaghetti western in perfection. Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. Jeez, I got this far and I didn't mention any Hitchcock. Talk about the zone, he was definitely in it during the 1950s, and he was pretty good in the 40s already. But, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest. Great, all-time stuff. Trying to think of some great 60s stuff, in addition to Mockingbird and 2001. Ah, Lawrence of Arabia and especially The Lion In Winter ("It's good to be king!!").
Some sleepers that no one ever mentions in these lists,... they may not be greatest material, but boy were they great: Eastwood's biopic about the making of African Queen, in which he's the John Huston character, White Hunter, Black Heart. Other good sleepers, Repo-Man, Blue Velvet, Woody Allen's Manhattan, The Wind And The Lion.
Well, I could prattle on, but...
I'll leave you with the classic Ned Beatty monologue from Network:
You have meddled with the primal
forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I
won't have it, is that clear?! You
think you have merely stopped a
business deal -- that is not the
case! The Arabs have taken billions
of dollars out of this country, and
now they must put it back. It is
ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is
ecological balance! You are an old
man who thinks in terms of nations
and peoples. There are no nations!
There are no peoples! There are no
Russians. There are no Arabs!
There are no third worlds! There is
no West! There is only one holistic
system of systems, one vast and
immane, interwoven, interacting,
multi-variate, multi-national
dominion of dollars! petro-dollars,
electro-dollars, multi-dollars!,
Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and
shekels! It is the international
system of currency that determines
the totality of life on this planet!
That is the natural order of things
today! That is the atomic,
subatomic and galactic structure of
things today! And you have meddled
with the primal forces of nature,
and you will atone! Am I getting
through to you, Mr. Beale?
(pause)
You get up on your little twenty-
one inch screen, and howl about
America and democracy. There is no
America. There is no democracy.
There is only IBM and ITT and A T
and T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide
and Exxon. Those are the nations of
the world today. What do you think
the Russians talk about in their
councils of state -- Karl Marx?
They pull out their linear
programming charts, statistical
decision theories and minimax
solutions and compute the price-cost
probabilities of their transactions
and investments just like we do. We
no longer live in a world of nations
and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The
world is a college of corporations,
inexorably deter- mined by the
immutable by-laws of business. The
world is a business, Mr. Beale! It
has been since man crawled out of
the slime, and our children, Mr.
Beale, will live to see that perfect
world in which there is no war and
famine, oppression and brutality --
one vast and ecumenical holding
company, for whom all men will work
to serve a common profit, in which
all men will hold a share of stock,
all necessities provided, all
anxieties tranquilized, all boredom
amused. And I have chosen you to
preach this evangel, Mr. Beale.
HOWARD
(humble whisper)
Why me?
JENSEN
Because you're on television, dummy.
