Violence is Enjoyable
What is the greatest Western ever made? There might be some debate, but for me and many others it is Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. I first saw it at around 12 years old at a small mining town drive-in. Thankfully, they were occasionally lax about letting youngsters into R movies in those days. Getting in to see it that night become one of those unforgettable childhood moments. It was gritty and dark and the violence was spectacular — everything a kid could want from a cowboy movie. It blew me away, and I haven’t see a western of it’s calibre since.
Much is lost on the small (flash) screen, but I include below the famous ending of The Wild Bunch. I don’t recommend watching it if you haven’t seen the movie. It’s better to see the whole thing in full and on the big screen.
http://ubantu.homelinux.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/videos/wildbunch_ext.flvAt the beginning of these scenes the remaining members of the Wild Bunch gather together and walk through an outpost. (The picture above is taken from this moment.) The walk is the final parade in a film that has many parades. It is a parade of a breed of men who are disappearing, along with the old west, as a new modern era begins. This would be my all time favourite movie scenes, and it’s without doubt the greatest last stand ever put on film.
I’m turned off by formulas or scenes contrived to extract some kind of emotion. However, if it’s done well it can be inspiring. For the most part, though, the older get the rarer it is for me to be that impressed are moved by a movie going experience. However, despite skepticism, it can still happen.
Happen it did the night I went to see Brazil, not knowing that much about it. Here is another film that instantly became one of my all time favourite movies. I would say it’s probably the number one of my top ten. It is so unique with its bizarre upside down world, its black comedy, film references, literary allusions and symbolism. There is a clear debt to Kafka in this twisted vision of an individual against society, bureaucratic madness and the ghost in the machine. Directed by Terry Gilliam, you can also see the legacy of Monty Python at work. Aspects of Brazil can also be seen in the better known 12 Monkeys, which for me wasn’t as good.You can check out the Brazil trailer below:
The passion excited by films like this partly arises out of the recognition that I am witnessing something new and that has never been done before. A film that also falls in this category is Rigly Scott’s Alien, whose look and feel when it came out was unlike any sci-fi film before it. (People had the same feeling with 2001: A Space Odyssey.) It had the best ever alien, unique set design, claustrophobic environs and hardware that looked used like it belonged. It was in a class of its own.
There are classic scenes like the alien bursting from a chest, which has become a part of modern pop culture. There were subtles, like the robot’s behaviour and the suggestion that one of the female crew is raped by the alien. Years later the same director would make that other brilliant sci-fi classic, Bladerunner, another one of my favourite movies.I couldn’t go past Taxi Driver as another film to have a great impact on me. I think I saw it before any other Martin Scorsese films, and several years after it came out, although I hadn’t heard much about it other than it was considered an exceptional movie. I had to agree. I loved the use of slow motion inter-cut with fast action, the interesting camera angles, the close ups. This film had it all. Its direction, music, the alienation and brooding aloneness of Travis, the incidental details that were afforded significance, and the bloody cathartic ending – these all made it an undeniable classic. It certainly appealed to me as an eighteen year old misfit, single and frustrated by the way life was going. I’m sure the young males that shared my demographic at the time perhaps related to it more than any one else.
Other films that come to mind at the moment, that have impressed or captured my imagination at some stage in my life for one reason or another are these:
Bonnie and Clyde
Dr. Strangelove
The Godfather I & II
Reservoir Dogs
Raise The Red Lantern (Chinese)
Man Bites Dog (Belgian)
Scarface
Animal Farm
The Good Earth
Midnight Cowboy
Barton Fink
Come And See (Russian)
The Deer Hunter
The Seventh Seal
Memories of Murder (Korean)
The Matrix
Das Boot (German)
From the blackest of all black-humour movies, the brilliant Man Bites Dog
