I’ve been tracking my progress as I watch the They Shoot Pictures Don’t They Top 1000 films in order of release over on Twitter since July of 2021. Since I’m migrating back here it makes sense to get back on my bullshit here. I’m going to try to finish the 1930s movies before the end of the year.
I’ve skipped Duck Soup (1933), Design for Living (1933), It Happened One Night (1934), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The 39 Steps (1939), and Top Hat (1935) since I’ve seen those fairly recently.
Land Without Bread (1933)
Another fake documentary. It’s impressive how long it took for non-heavily manipulated documentaries to emerge as a genre. I can’t recommend it because it’s boring and there’s lots of unsimulated violence against animals.
L’Atalante (1934)
Just cats. Cats everywhere .
Man of Aran (1934)
Another fake documentary. This one has some stirring and beautiful imagery of Ireland in service of the “man vs. nature” theme. It’s no more realistic than its forefather Nanook of the North.
The Scarlet Empress (1934)
This movie is very horny. Possibly more horny than any of the other Sternberg-Dietrich collaborations. I guess when Catherine the Great is the subject matter, things tend to trend toward the horny. There’s an abundance of lovely sets and terrible wigs.
It’s a Gift (1934)
W.C. Fields’ character’s wife is depicted as a shrill harpy. Thing is... she’s right about everything and deserves better. I’m glad that we’ve moved past W.C. Fields as a society.
Triumph of the Will (1935)
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I’d seen clips of this in school, but I’d never watched the whole thing before. It’s important to include for context and it’s significant influence on later works, but fucking yikes. It reminded me a lot of Sergei Eisenstein’s works.
A Night at the Opera (1935)
‘30s comedy can age surprisingly well, as demonstrated by the Marx Brothers in this film. Sure, the plot is veneer thin, but not everything has to be deep.
The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1935)
I’m mad about the number of Renoir films on this list. The plots sound interesting, then they’re executed in the list interesting way possible.
Modern Times (1936)
I take back what I said about Gold Rush being where to start with Chaplin for the uninitiated. It’d been a really long time, so I’d forgotten just how charming this film is. Still mostly silent, it would be more approachable for someone who isn’t accustomed to intertitles or overly expressive silent acting.
By the Bluest of Seas (1936)
Another film with a veneer thin plot, but this time in the USSR.
Street Angel (1937)
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This film was interesting in the beginning when it was a weird jukebox musical, but then it slid into a serious plot about keeping one of the characters out of the sex work trade. This is a common plot in a lot of Japanese media from around this time, so I’m not surprised to see it also pop up in a Chinese work. It was a bit of whiplash.
Pépé le Moko (1937)
Pépé is the saddest boy in the Casbah. Come watch him be super sad as a result of his life choices for 90 minutes.
Alexander Payne and his camp seem to have a knack for casting. Sideways, Citizen Ruth, About Schmidt: all of his best films are marked by smart actors giving inimitable portrayals of gut-punchingly fucked-up people. I can't imagine anyone else other than Reese Witherspoon as the psychotically ambitious Tracy Flick. Just great casting all around.
Japanese film in the 50's had the market absolutely cornered on brutal and balletic tragedy. The darkest of Shakespeare has nothing on Mizoguchi. Sansho will break you into a million beautiful glittering pieces and then sweep you under it's huge, heavy rug of sadness.
I like when it's a loud hullabaloo and then it goes suddenly quiet. I like when it's a flurry of movement and then abrupt slow-motion. I like the whimsy, I like the absurdity, I like the bite hiding underneath.
This is my third Tarkovsky, and if I can sense any trend it is this: it is like being suspended in an alternate universe. Suspended, and spellbound. It's a marvelous feeling.
Lovely photography (that grain!), a dream-like pace, and dialogue that occasionally slips into the existential in a completely unpretentious way make this a really enjoyable, almost charming film to watch. And sometimes when people say "charming" they really mean "it was fun and it didn't make me think too hard" but that is not the case here. This feels light as air, but it is filled to the brim with meaning and substance. I loved it.
