Filmstruck is a great company for anyone interested in watching films from cinema’s past. The site has nearly everything, including great films from other countries: think Netflix for Turner Classic Movies. In this post I’m gonna give you a host of recommendations based on all the stuff that I’ve seen on the site. We’ll break this into 3 brackets: CONSIDER, SKIP, and MUST SEE.
For this post, these films I’d CONSIDER if you buy into them, but they’re not quite good enough to be must see material in my opinion.
CONSIDER
City Lights
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Let’s start in the silent era. I’m guessing most of you have heard of Charlie Chaplin, but might not know who he is or why he’s famous. In his most famous films, Chaplin plays a loveable scamp or soundrel, not quite working in normal society but not really hurting anyone either. City Lights is the most well known of his stories, where his scamp ends up falling in love with a blind woman.
Does it hold up?: Absolutely. The silence might make you squirm in your seat a little bit, but some amusing or loopy sight gag comes along every minute or two to keep you interested. Also, underneath it, the love story between Chaplin and Virginia Cherrill, the blind woman, is touching and sweet, and pays off with one of the early great endings in cinema history.
The Searchers
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John Ford had to show up here sooner or later. The Searchers is one of his greatest Westerns. John Wayne stars as a Civil War Vet who returns to his family ranch in Texas, only to find a group of Comanche Native Americans have stolen the livestock of the people in the area.
Does it hold up?: Parts of it do. As a Western, this is one of the better ones I’ve seen. The traps the cowboys walk into are expertly staged and very scary. The gunfights are all very thrilling. There’s even some great humor about someone accidentally buying a Native American Wife. I’m perpetually torn on John Wayne’s character here. He’s frustratingly complex: he’s clearly heroic for wanting to save his abducted friends and family from Indians, but he also tells his adopted Nephew he doesn’t like the look of him and can never trust him because he’s part Native American. The movie also depicts Native Americans in the worst light possible: as a group of dark men corrupting the innocent white women. Even though these frustrations exist, they will keep the movie in your head for a while, as you can see with my writing here.
My Night At Maud’s
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Onto a France twofer. We’ll start with Eric Rohmer, who created 6 Moral Tales in cinema he wanted us to ponder, but for all intensive purposes you shouldn’t (see the SKIP section for more on that). My Night at Maud’s is the one exception though, about a man’s attempt to find a wife that goes in a direction you’re not expecting.
Does it hold up?: Sort of. The set up is VERY French, with one guy friend setting himself up as the 3rd wheel of a meet cute between Jean Louis Trintignant and Francoise Fabian so they can hook up. What’s so clever about My Night at Maud’s is that Trintignant’s mind gets completely warped over one intense emotional conversation all night with Maud. They talk about little things that allow them to open up to one another for the big emotional discussions that follow, in completely captivating ways. For me, I pictured a young Richard Linklater watching My Night at Maud’s going, “Hey, this is pretty sweet! Let’s see if I can pull this off,” making Maud the inspiration behind Linklater’s Before Trilogy (those would be in the MUST SEE category).
The 400 Blows
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If Jean-Luc Godard is the most famous New Wave French Director, Francois Truffaut’s name isn’t far behind. The 400 Blows is the reason why, telling a quasi autobiographical tale of a boy trapped in an exasperating home life and ostracized by all authority figures.
Does it hold up?: Shockingly, yes. Films set in the New Wave era of cinema tend to be of their time. The 400 Blows is certainly of its time, but it contains some timeless study in there as well, especially about systemic forces eliminating opportunities for your future success. Truffaut sucks you in with how much fun Jean-Pierre Leaud is having, but around him he keeps getting criticized by teachers or parents, skips school and falls farther behind, and gets pulled into the criminal justice cycle. The Florida Project tells a similar story to Truffaut’s, and is equally powerful, meaning the talented directer really tapped into something special.
The Thin Blue Line
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Errol Morris is one of the great documentarians in movie history, and The Thin Blue Line is one of his best, if not his very best, telling the tale of Randle Dale Adams, a man convicted of murder on death row in Texas, only his personality and the facts don’t quite match the story the prosecution presented…
Does it hold up?: Of course. This is Making a Murderer 1.0, only the story is MUCH clearer. Morris does great reenactments to explain what exactly happened, and gets lots of interview time with Adams, and who Morris believes to be the real killer to make it clear Adams probably is innocent. The doc needs the follow through that MAM has (as in, why did so many people lie on the witness stand, or what did the police have against Adams?), but it still gets its point across with the best result possible. This documentary famously is one of the first to actually lead to real change: Adams got acquitted and walked out a free man a year after the doc.
Persona
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Swedish director Ingmar Bergman is famous for cinephiles, but for the causal moviegoer people might think this is the person in Casablanca (1. It’s not, 2. Ingmar is a man. 3) Ingrid Bergman is not related to him). Persona is his story about a relatively new nurse caring for an actress who winds up mute but doesn’t know why.
Does it hold up?: For movie junkies, totally. This is high concept arthouse fare, but it’s VERY well made. Bergman uses shadows to great effect, creating an ominous atmosphere of what shouldn’t be a scary situation. Most importantly, there’s a surreality here that messes with the mind in good ways, and like the star, creates a situation where each person projects themselves onto the mute actress, extremely hard to pull off unless you’re as talented a writer/director as Bergman is. For the casual watcher, the obsessive artistry might be off putting, but Bergman might have had that in mind, so at least you’ll get a stellar sexy scene where one of the characters delivers a super hot monologue about her greatest sexual moment.
Lagaan
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Under British rule, a province in India, threatened by excessive taxation, rises up by challenging the Brits to a cricket match.
Does it hold up?: 100%. This is an unabashed sports movie, through and through. It teaches cricket to the lay person pretty easily, and builds the team slowly, 1 by 1, so you know why they are important. It is also a Bollywood flick, so there are some great song and dance numbers as well. Musical + Sports Movie + British Period Piece? Sounds like a crowd pleaser for sure, if a bit long…
It Happened One Night
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This is a Frank Capra movie, meaning there will be some crazy magical/genuinely optimistic scenario that will leave you feeling good by the end of the movie. In this case, Claudette Colbert is an heiress running away in hopes to elope with her jerk of a boyfriend, and Clark Gable is a reporter in search of a story. Hmm, I wonder if the rom com gods will put this mismatched pair together.
Does it hold up?: Mixed bag here. The results are certainly satisfying, and the dialogue goes a long way to cover up the aging rapidly plot. There’s a great scene in the bedroom where a sheet divides the room, and the pair call it the Walls of Jericho, just so you know that eventually that wall has to come down: smart. Clark Gable (the I don’t give a damn guy from Gone With the Wind) has never been more appealing: funny and charming as well as one of the early movie times someone was undressed and revealed a hunky body for a person to oh la la at. Unfortunately, Gable gets ALL the best lines in the movie. Poor Claudette Colbert is there to act incredulous at her suitor, or to show off a fancy leg hitchhiking to get picked up. She comes off as an innocent doofus only to be saved by Gable’s character or be the butt of the joke. However, Capra’s story means the movie will keep her sympathetic enough to root for, but it’s clear this was a time where Hollywood really struggled to find great roles for women.