Wednesday, February 12, 2014

FILM ARCHIVE ~





(1985)



Not at all for public eyes, and simply how I've filed away films the past year, I thought I'd share this list for friends of the Birdhouse. Again, none of this is for the public, so imagine you are not.

When I scan over various lists year after year, of films or books or music, most seem built to either impress the reader or to make some statement. No statement here. It's the way the chips fall. It's how films came to me, and often via the satellite dish reception, which is out there in the woods and snow. Or what I still glean from town libraries, but I'm doing much less of that these days. I can now pull almost all Criterion films right off my Roku contraption. An old friend, long gone, who used to assist us on retrieving such things over the Internet, the 'sky', or far towns, will get a kick out of knowing we're still keeping-on and finding good stuff. 

Curiously, not many foreign films are listed here, which I watch regularly, although the first film noted is top shelf Europa. Many of these films came off the Turner Classic Movies station c/o Robert Osborne which is like a nice little neighborhood bakery you can't do without. Everyone mentions greater and grander bakeries and dishes and sweets, but here you are sticking to your faithful and tiny shop — Osborne's — day after day. A little bell on the door as you walk in.

The films are noted in no order of importance. It's how each film was registered, others erased, others kept and re-watched many times.

I do consider Claude Lanzmann's Shoah the greatest film ever made. Five minutes, heck, five seconds of Shoah equals all of Citizen Kane. The camera work alone is incredible. The commentary overwhelming. The portraits unforgettable . . . no matter what else comes your way. I watched the film when it was first released and recently watched it again, all six discs, because Sweetheart had never seen it. A masterpiece nine and a half hours long (shaved down from 350 hours of footage). You'll want someone sitting with you.


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SHOAH

BLACK NARCISSUS

HAROLD AND MAUDE

PARIS, TEXAS

THE GAME

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

THE KILLING  (Kubrick)

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

THE WILD BUNCH

REAR WINDOW

NORTH BY NORTHWEST

A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE

DR. STRANGELOVE

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN

THE GRADUATE

RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY

THE ASPHALT JUNGLE

CAPE FEAR  (original)
 
TWO-LANE BLACKTOP

EYES WITHOUT A FACE

WITHNAIL AND I

CITY LIGHTS

WHERE DANGER LIVES

DIABOLIQUE  (original)

NIAGARA

GUN CRAZY

LADY IN THE LAKE

BADLANDS

BONNIE AND CLYDE

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS

POINT BLANK

YOJIMBO

ANGEL FACE

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

KISS ME DEADLY

NOTORIOUS

THE VIRGIN SPRING

WE OWN THE NIGHT

A PLACE IN THE SUN

TENSION

PAYBACK

INDIA: MATRI BHUMI

LOUIS C.K. OH MY GOD

HIGH SIERRA

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

OUT OF THE PAST

DARK PASSAGE

SEVEN SAMURAI

LE SAUVAGE

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

VERTIGO

IN A LONELY PLACE

NIGHTMARE ALLEY

ANDREI RUBLEV

FUNNY GAMES (original)

THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY

AU HASARD BALTHAZAR
 


That's enough.

Oh! ALL the films of BUSTER KEATON. Place them, respectfully, right next to SHOAH.

Again, this is not a favorite films list — though many of my favorites are here — it's films that came to me the past year and I kept awhile in an archive to watch, and watch again.

Sweetheart and I now laugh when we think how when in our woods cabin on Saturday night, circa 1974, deep in snow piles and no tv in our midst for the next ten years, how we often dreamt on those nights how nice it would be to sit with a film. So far from town, no one it seemed for miles around, just the river and the stars and the silence. Just.