February 1, 2005
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31 movies that changed the face of cinema
By Richard Roeper
Last summer, Bill Gates said the DVD would be obsolete in 10 years. Upon hearing this comment, I took a look at my collection of more than 2000 DVDs and screamed to the sky: “Curse you Mother Technology!”
Gates is probably right. A decade from now we’ll be chuckling at the clunky old movie disks. But whether we’re watching films in a theater at home or via a chip implanted in our brains, movies will remain the dominant art form of the 21st century, just as they were the most important art form of the last century.
Putting together a list of 31 films that changed the landscape is a maddening exercise. How can I neglect The Birth of a Nation, The Jazz Singer, The General, Duck Soup, Rules of the Game, Casablanca, The Bicycle Thief, Lawrence of Arabia, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction and The Matrix?
Because I couldn’t bear to keep any of the following films off the list.
Fade in
The Great Train Robbery (1903) – Welcome to the world of movies as a storytelling medium – and as a thrill ride. When a gunman fired a shot at the camera, audiences screamed and ducked. Directed and photographed by Edwin S. Porter (who had worked as a cameraman for Thomas Edison), The Great Train Robbery presented a story with a traditional narrative, including leaps in time from one scene to the next. It also introduced American audiences to parallel narratives taking place in different locations along with some rudimentary camera movement. And a full century before Chicago was filmed in Toronto, this Western was set in Wyoming – and filmed in New Jersey.
Bad guy archetype
Nosferatru, the Vampire (1922) – One of the first and still one of the greatest vampire movies ever made. Max Shreck’s Count Orlok, a walking cadaver with a bald pate, pasty skin, pointy ears and ghastly razor teeth, set the standard for every horror movie villain to follow (this guy would take one look at Tom Cruise’s flamboyant Lestat and burst out laughing: “Nice ruffles on your shirt, buddy”). Director F.W. Murnau’s expressionist masterpiece, with its elegant camerawork and brilliant mood lighting, sticks to you like a recurring nightmare. A young Hitchcock shadowed Murnau in the mid-20s, trying to learn as much as he could.
Frame by frame finesse
Battleship Potemkin (1925) – This Soviet propaganda film recreates the 1905 mutiny on the battleship Potemkin, utilizing editing techniques still in vogue some 80 years later. Directed by Grigori Aleksandrov and Sergei Eisenstein, Potemkin’s centerpiece is one of the most famous and influential sequences in cinema history: the baby carriage bouncing down the Odessa Steps as gunfire rages all around. It has been copied dozens of times, most notably in The Untouchables. It’s nearly as memorable as the brutal close-up of a woman’s face after she has been shot. Her glasses are bent, the right lens broken, as blood pours from her eye. That shot would get you an R rating in 2005; imagine the effect on audiences in the mid-20s.
Westerns make rank
Stagecoach (1939) – The first Western with sound from director John Ford is still cited by many a great director as a key influence. Before Stagecoach, which received seven Academy Award nominations, the Western was considered a B-level genre – the opening film of a double feature. Ford and screenwriter Dudley Nichols elevated the Western to a higher level with a richly textured, complex, adult-oriented story about a harrowing stagecoach journey through Indian country. This is also the first film to indicate that a B-list staple named John Wayne (Ringo the Kid) had the stuff of stardom.
Often imitated, never duplicated
The Wizard of Oz (1939) – From the home office in Kansas, eight reasons why The Wizard of Oz is a hugely influential film:
1. The reality-to-dream segue from black-and-white to three-strip Technicolor – and it’s not just a gimmick. Colors are a key element in the story, from the ruby slippers to the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City. What were the characters supposed to do, sit around in black and white and talk about all those color-coded elements?
2. Long before Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, Margaret Hamilton showed that a female villain could be just as terrifying as any man.
3. Over the Rainbow is often cited as the most famous musical number in film history. Judy Garland’s rendition is incomparable, but it’s been covered by hundreds of other artists in numerous films including Contact, You’ve Got Mail and Face/Off.
4. The story is so familiar now that we tend to forget that The Wizard of Oz has one of the great twist endings of all time. And you were there, and you, and you… Any other film that ends with the old “It was all a dream” trick is a pale imitation.
5. In its initial theatrical release, Oz was only a moderate hit. Like It’s a Wonderful Life, it became a Boomer staple because of repeated showings on television, starting on CBS in 1956 and continuing through the 1960s and 1970s (it usually played on or ne
ar a holiday, adding to the Boomer’s warm-fuzzy feelings about the film). 6. Think of all the lines that live on, 65 years later. I bet you’ve heard a variation on at least one of these in the last week:
“Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more.”
“If I only had a brain.”
“I’ll get you, my pretty.”
“There’s no place like home.”
“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”
7. The pop culture influences are endless: The rock band Toto. Another band called Surrender Dorothy. The HBO series Oz. Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Diana Ross and Michael Jackson in The Wiz. The flying cow in Twister.
8. If there’s no Wizard of Oz, there’s no Under the Rainbow (hey, the influences can’t all be positive).
All the right moves
Citizen Kane (1941) – Yeah, I know it’s an obvious choice – but leaving Kane off the list would be akin to keeping Michael Jordan off “the greatest basketball players of all time” list. If you asked every director in the world to name his/her favorite film, Citizen Kane would likely get more mentions than every other movie put together. Director/producer/ screenwriter/star Orson Welles updated the language of photography, light, editing and sound, while cinematographer Greg Doland’s deep-focus work takes your breath away. Overlapping dialogue, low-angle shots, experimental lighting, the use of newsreel foot-age to advance the story, a subjective camera; Welles didn’t invent these techniques, but he used them more frequently and more effectively than anyone had up to that point. He was an auteur before we knew what it was. Kane also happens to be a wildly entertaining portrait of a megalomanical, somewhat Hearst-like media baron. And it should serve to take the pressure off every young filmmaker in the world. Welles made this masterpiece when he was 25. You’re not going to top it, so relax and just do the best you can.
Frozen in time
The 400 Blows (1959) – Francois Truffaut’s first feature was at the forefront of the French New Wave, one of the most exciting turning points in movie history. It’s the bridge between the old-school, classic Hollywood dramas that were told with traditional, safe camera moves and the modern, more experimental cinema, highlighted by dazzling cinematography and a jazzy style. Truffaut’s autobiographical tale of a troubled adolescent named Antoine is the blueprint for decades of films about disenfranchised youths. The final shot is among the most famous in film history: a zoom to a freeze-frame of Antoine as he looks directly into the camera. Hundreds of movies, from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to Rocky to Uncle Buck, have subsequently borrowed that move.
Freedom of expression
A Hard Day’s Night (1964) – The first great rock musical is also the godfather of the music video. Director Richard Lester’s genius was in realizing that The Beatles were their own best characters. None of this Elvis-playing-a-guy-named-Rick-who-sings-like-Elvis stuff. The Beatles play The Beatles: running from crazed fans, cracking wise at press conferences, dealing with clueless “establishment” types like their manager and a TV director and, of course, playing some of the most joyous, timeless pop music imaginable. Instead of trying to squeeze the Fab Four into a conventional narrative, Lester (and screenwriter Alun Owen) play to the boys’ strength, giving them room to roam and filming them with the free-form techniques of the French New Wave.
Sci-fi legitimacy
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – Just as Stagecoach made the Western respectable, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey lifted the sci-fi genre from B-movie camp to art-film status. Although the 2001 of reality hardly matched the future as envisioned in this film, it’s not as if our lives aren’t controlled by computer technology. Kubrick’s abstract masterpiece was notable for the cutting-edge special effects; the creative use of classical music; the great, pounding silences (we’re nearly a half-hour into the film before any dialogue is spoken) and the much-imitated imagery, e.g. a prehistoric ape hurls a bone into the air and it becomes an orbiting space satellite. 2001 made it possible for audiences to accept science fiction films as something much more than just guys in shiny suits firing laser guns at Martians.
Society’s reflection
Easy Rider (1969) – It’s the ultimate road movie, the first counterculture blockbuster, the gold standard for merging rock music with visuals (Born to be Wild) – and the film that launched Jack Nicholson’s rise from hammy B-lister to beloved icon. The 60s were almost over before Hollywood acknowledged what was happening in the United States. While Civil Rights leaders were being assassinated, thousands were dying in Vietnam, race riots raged in the inner city and campuses roiled with unrest, the studios were churning out old-fashioned entertainment like The Sound of Music, Doctor Zhivago, Funny Girl, Hello Dolly and Oliver! (even The Graduate has no mention of war, drugs or racial tension). The enormous success of Easy Rider proved that young audiences wanted to see movies that reflected the rapidly changing world.
Mob mentality hits
The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather II (1974) – Premiere magazine named Don Vito Corleone as the greatest movie character of all time. Right movie, wrong character. Yes, Brando’s comeback performance is a thing of subtle beauty. But it’s Michael Corleone who is the most complex, fascinating and influential character in modern cinema since Charles Foster Kane. As he goes from war hero to hitman to a cold-blooded crime patriarch who orders the execution of his own brother, Michael is the embodiment of all that was noble and all that was corrupt in the 20th century American male. The Godfather I and II, taken as one complete film, is perhaps the greatest movie ever made about immigration, assimilation, family ties and corruption. If there’s no Godfather, there’s no Goodfellas, no Scarface and no Tony Soprano. The great American novel isn’t a novel at all; it’s a film directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Porn goes mainstream
Deep Throat (1972) – Porn stars are so mainstream now that Jenna Jameson has a book – a book – on the bestseller list. Today, adult entertainment is a multi-billion dollar industry that dominates the Internet and home DVD sales; but in the early 1970s, porn consisted of short films that played in gunky back rooms of sex shops. Then came Deep Throat, an admittedly awful but cheerfully campy romp starring Linda Lovelace as a woman whose clitoris is in her throat. Made for less than $25,000, it has grossed hundreds of millions of dollars and just might be the most profitable film of any kind, ever. Deep Throat made porn semi-acceptable. The film played in real theaters where attendees included couples and Hollywood celebrities. When Woodward and Bernstein had to come up with a name for their secret Watergate source, the choice was obvious: Deep Throat.
The original spoof
Blazing Saddles (1974) – Mel Brooks combined the anarchic comic sensibilities of the Marx Brothers with the racist, sexist, scatological humor of a dirty comic – and the result was a tasteless, tacky, stupid and undeniably hilarious Western spoof called Blazing Saddles. Brooks populated his farce with characters who had names like Hedley Lamarr and Lili Von Shtupp, and he threw everything he could at the screen: a man punching a horse, a farting contest around the campfire, lots of jokes about well-endowed black men and racist rednecks, and a number of self-referential jabs. He breaks down the “fourth wall” throughout the movie and finally surrenders all pretense of reality with a final chase scene that takes the characters from the Old West to the back lot sets of other studio pictures, through the Warner Bros. cafeteria and even to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Before there was an Airplane!, before there was a Something About Mary, before there was a Scary Movie, there was Blazing Saddles.
Summer blockbuster is born
Jaws (1975) – Until the early 1970s, there was no such thing as a “wide release.” Major films would play in only one location, almost always in New York or Los Angeles, for at least a month before moving into a few more cities and then to smaller towns across the country. Even The Godfather, one of the most anticipated films in history, opened in only five theaters – though it did quickly expand to more than 300, an unheard of rollout at the time.
Then came Jaws. In June of 1975, it opened in 465 theaters at the same time, and the summer blockbuster was born (until Jaws, summer had been considered the graveyard season for movies). Jaws also belongs on this list because Steven Spielberg was a master at creating tension through music, pacing and great performances. We don’t even get a good look at the shark until the film is almost over – and when we do see the mechanical beast, we experience some of the least scary moments of the entire movie.
Pop culture personified
Star Wars (1977) – The most important pop culture touchstone of the last two generations. The Star Wars franchise is more ingrained in the national consciousness than the Lord of the Rings movies, the Harry Potter books, or any television show or pop singer. Star Wars wasn’t just a summer blockbuster, it was a summer event; aimed squarely at young moviegoers who turned it into a religion. The timing was perfect. We were nursing a national hangover created by years of Vietnam and Nixon and a bad economy, then George Lucas comes along giving us timeless heroes and villains engaging in epic battles of good vs. evil.
Star Wars forever changed the landscape in so many ways, from the use of computer-created special effects to Lucas’ prescient abilities to recognize the potential of marketing tie-ins like T-shirts, lunchboxes and action figures. And, for better or worse, it created a whole new level of box office mania.
Stayin’ Alive with sound
Saturday Night Fever (1977) – Yeah, it’s a disco movie, but this is the film that made John Travolta a star and the dance numbers are still among the most exhilarating ever filmed. The story itself touches on universal themes – a young man’s desire to get out of the neighborhood and away fromhis suffocating family so he can make something of himself – and it holds up surprisingly well. But that’s not why Saturday Night Fever makes the list. The film’s lasting contribution
is the soundtrack – one of the biggest-selling albums of all time. From White Christmas to Over the Rainbow to Goldfinger, hit songs had emerged from films for decades, but Saturday Night Fever ushered in the era of the movie soundtrack tie-in. Nowadays it would be unimaginable to release a film without a companion CD.
The horror
Halloween (1978) – John Carpenter’s low-budget classic is the first slasher film – and still one of the best. Halloween actually had a relatively low body count and very little blood, but it spawned a video section’s worth of splatter cinema. Several more Halloween movies followed, along with the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street series, and the self-referencing Scream and Scary Movie franchises. Carpenter introduced such horror staples as the Scream Queen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and the killer’s-point-of-view camera shot. Halloween wasn’t as shocking or artful as Psycho, but it had a greater impact on the moviemaking process. Hitchcock’s film was impossible to replicate; Carpenter’s movie spawned 100 imitators.
Godfather of greenscreen
Tron (1982) – 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Alien, Looker and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan all featured some form of computer-created special effects, but Tron is widely credited as the film that offered a real glimpse into the CGI future of movies. Directed by Steven Lisberger, the movie bombed critically and commercially, but it holds a place in history because it has some 15 minutes of scenes consisting entirely of moving images created by computer – and some 200 scenes with computer-generated background thanks to visual visionaries Syd Mead and comic artist Jean Giraud. It is the baby step that led to the leaps and bounds on display in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
Two visions – two versions
Blade Runner (1982 and 1992) – Directed by visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott, this is one of the few movies about the future that hasn’t been rendered ridiculous by the passage of time. There’s something hauntingly authentic about the rain-splattered, neon-drenched, chaotic cityscapes of Blade Runner. To this day, countless films ape that look.
This is also one of the first movies to get the “director’s cut” treatment – advancing the idea that even after a film’s theatrical release, it should be considered a work in progress. It’s the director’s prerogative to bring out later versions with enhanced special effects, elongated scenes and maybe even a different ending.
