Our Quest

Many of you already know that Andrea and I have a pet project. In 1998, when the American Film Institute published a list of the 100 greatest American films in history, we somehow read about the list (100 Years ... 100 Movies). We looked it over and realized that we had seen many already. Then out of curiosity we pulled up a list of all the Academy Award Best Picture winners to compare them. For some reason we made a decision to educate ourselves in the history of film a little by watching all the movies from both lists.

Turns out this was not a small thing we were undertaking. For one thing, there were more than 160 films on both lists. Then a new Academy Awards is held every spring, and they always have another damn Best Picture. Then, the AFI updated their list in 2008 with some changes. Bastards. So it has ended up being nearly 190-odd films.

Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, it's no Trail of Tears, but it isn't easy either. First of all, we like to watch movies in general, and so that means that we don't always feel like putting in a dark artistic vision from the '30s. Sometimes we want to watch something new or something a little idiotic and fun. And we don't naturally want to watch a few movies every single week of the year. And not every movie stacks up so well through the years.

This is especially true of many of the Oscar winners. The AFI 100 has the benefit of hindsight, in that they get to decide after the movies are old which ones are great. But the Oscars are often a popularity contest (Titanic? Really?).

So we started with the most recent films that we had not already seen, and started working backwards, with the immediate goal of trying to see all the films off both lists since our births. Since we're kind of movie buffs, this didn't take too long. But we started to notice on both lists that some of the films seemed so dated, even corny at times.

The French Connection really stood out for us in this respect. I don't mean to say it's not a great film; it really is. Its use of the anti-hero of Popeye Doyle, who roughs up informants and makes acquaintances with pimps and drug dealers in order to stay in touch with the underworld was extremely innovative for 1971. And there was a really long, really intense car chase scene that turned action films on their ears. William Friedkin apparently put cameras in cars and just filmed while driving through the streets of New York like maniacs, without closing roads or getting police permission at all. Gonzo filmmaking, and likely the most intense chase scene to date. Not the first but the first of such complexity.

However, from the eyes of people looking back 30 years on it, The French Connection seems a little dated. Rogue cops have been done a million times since then (L.A. Confidential, The Bad Lieutenant), and to greater extremes. Starsky and Hutch badly copied the cops-criminal informants relationship only a few years later, and so it seems quaint. And chase scenes have become a staple for action movies. Lord knows The Dukes of Hazzard would have been a three-minute show every week without the chase scenes. And they've been done a lot better since then (Ronin, The Bourne Identity).

So we realized that we were probably looking at the history of film through the wrong end of the telescope. And we started from the beginning.

It has really turned us around. I can be certain that many of the movies we loved would have seemed dated to us without having an understanding of where they were coming from. Grand Hotel (1931-32), It Happened One Night(1934), and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) really amazed us. But not only these.

It's really been loads of fun, and we've learned a lot. We find we've become absolute devotees of DVD Extra Feature documentaries on the making of the picture. And we've been able to watch actors throughout their careers as well. It's actually turned us on to many other movies that didn't make either list but were from a director or era or genre we enjoyed. For example, we've watched several Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton films beyond either list.

Even though, it's sometimes a tough slog. Many great dramas are hard to watch (The Deer Hunter (1978), Birth of a Nation (1915)). Many are very long, and take a long time to get going. And many (especially the Oscars) are just not that enjoyable, even though now we can appreciate why they must have been at the time (Around the World in 80 Days (1956), The Life of Emile Zola (1937)). And one really stands out as being nearly unwatchable: The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). It's really horrible. Charleton Heston stars as the manager of the Ringling Brothers / Barnum & Bailey (could they make that name a little longer?) Circus. He's got a trapeze girl who loves him, a hotshot new French trapeze guy who's after his gal. And the owners are thinking of shutting it down for lack of profitability. And Jimmy Stewart plays a clown who never takes off his makeup. That's it for the plot. Now imagine making nearly all the acting terrible (except for Stewart, of course), and having long breaks in the story to show circus acts. And long pauses to show the amazing process of putting up or taking down a circus. And dramatic voice-overs describing what you are seeing in agonizing over-dramatized detail. I'm sorry but I just don't want to look that closely at circus folk.

It's a lot more difficult to find very old films on DVD or even VHS than the new ones. I don't think this can be stated strongly enough. Without Netflix we really couldn't have done this at all. We've also had some luck at libraries as well, but the first Best Picture winner (Wings (1927)) has proven very elusive for us. Andrea has recently purchased it from Amazon and we should have it in hand next week. We have put a few of the older ones on hold pending availability but are really closing in on this thing.

Last night, we watched Giant (1956), from the same director as A Place in the Sun (1951). I've seen lots of posters of the first, romanticized by James Dean dying days after he filmed his last scene. It was pretty good, and with great performances by Dean, Rock Hudson, and Liz Taylor. But it really is a retread of Cimmaron (1930/31), another multigenerational look at family dynasties building the west out of nothing. By contrast, A Place in the Sun is beautiful and heartbreaking and tense and nearly perfect. Anyway. we finished Giant, and officially finished watching every one of the original AFI 100 list!

We have 6 to go on the 2008 AFI 100 list. We have 3 Best Picture Oscars to go, plus Wings. I think that, after 11 years, we are going to finally be done.

Until February at least.