(This is edition No. 1 of the new column called Cinematheque, where we will analyze and discuss great cinema from all ages)
This isn’t an exhaustive list. It isn’t a list of the greatest movies of all time. It isn’t even a list of movies which came out this year. It’s a list for beginners—a group of people that I consider myself to be a member of. Why, then, would a beginner put together a list, and start a column dedicated to cinema? This would seem to open one up to saying inane, repetitive (in the context of greater film criticism more generally—for older movies, it could be argued, everything has been said), or even boring things. It would seem to be an unwise decision for me to make—but alas, there are plans bigger than one writer for this blog, and those plans necessitate not only a regular column for cinema, but one for fragrance, art, music, literature, and fashion (in addition to the continuation of cultural essays, philosophy, and interdisciplinary poetic writings). If we put all of these various topics, forms, and concentrations, what do we have together—as a whole? Well, as it turns out, a kind of cultural and arts magazine. There will be more on that later (next week). This paragraph merely serves as an introduction to not only this change (I have not talked about cinema before with you all), but also more changes to come (good ones—necessary ones (exciting ones)).
Now as concerns this list before us, we already know what it is not. But what is it? You will see that it covers various movements, periods, and styles of cinema. It has a superhero movie, some French New Wave, it includes maestros ranging from Godard, Tarkovsky, Lynch, Malick, and Fellini. It also has Ridley Scott, Gaspar Noe, and Wes Anderson. Some very old movies, and some modern ones. Movies about love, and movies about death. Films which fill you with fear and others that command exhilaration and aggression. It has, in short, the entire arena of the human spirit. As I did (not in recent memory, but once did), and will continue in the future to do, with the list of great literature, I will use this list as a channel to penetrate the moving pictures—to pull from them, from the actors, directors, and more, a great, beating, pulping heart: I will give it to you, and say, here! Do something with it!
If there is an arranging factor, or a vision at work in the list, it is that—but it is not a declarative, or final, statement on cinema, what it means as a method of expression, nor is it a comment on what directors are the greatest, or, by exclusion from the list, who is not great. I will have bigger and more declarative statements on all of the above at a later date, but it is not today. This is simply the beginning—the overture in a longer drama, one that bears the name Good Propaganda. Needless to say, I recommend you watch what strikes you fancy from the list below, but perhaps especially the first one.
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