top of the world: Film Comment Magazine selects the most important films and filmmakers of the nineties March 3 -- 8, 2000 photo: dead man

box office and ticket information | calendar "Film Comment offered the best of all the polls by virtue of its assorted constituents--filmmakers, programmers and critics...."-- Armond White, New York Press This past fall, the editors, staff, and some friends of Film Comment sent out letters to a blue-ribbon panel of critics, filmmakers, authors, archivists -- people with a serious personal and professional investment in film -- inviting their selections of the film of the decade and the film person of the decade. We weren't necessarily seeking the "greatest" film, "most creative director," or "brightest star." Rather, we asked, "Zero in on the film of the Nineties, from any nation, that casts the longest shadow for you, whether in terms of excellence, power, visionary quality, symbolic importance, influence, or epically destructive badness -- this is entirely your call. Same with the individual who, for better or worse, most decisively defines film in the Nineties. And we'd appreciate a brief statement why." The extremely provocative results--submitted by some 114 film luminaries--of that Film Comment poll can be found in the magazine's January / February issue; but we decided Walter Reade audiences might like to see the pollsters' cream of the crop: films either considered to be the most important of the decade or representative of work by directors ranked as the most important of the decade. Thus, this series--aptly titled Top of the World--is chock-full of masterpieces, classics, groundbreakers, coming things, pantheon visions...and, by the by, three New York premieres (Lars von Trier's THE IDIOTS, Manoel de Oliveira's INQUIÉTUDE, Abbas Kiarostami's THE WIND WILL CARRY US). Please join us for our exciting program of stand-out movies from the 90s, nearly all of which will be introduced by selected poll participants.--Kathleen Murphy, Contributing Editor, Film Comment DEAD MAN Jim Jarmusch, USA, 1995; 121m Jonathan Rosenbaum calls it "the fulfillment of a cherished counterculture dream, the acid western," and there's no doubt that the journey of "dead man" William Blake (Johnny Depp) is a dreamy one--a violently elegiac, rich black-and-white deconstruction of the myths of the West. Jarmusch makes visual poetry here (with the help of cinematographer Robby Müller and Neil Young's score); it's the kind of filmmaking that interweaves landscape, character, texture, sound, and event so seamlessly you are enraptured by the sheer potentiality of film art--an increasingly rare experience. Blake's an Eastern tenderfoot who gets shot early on--by a whore's former lover (Gabriel Byrne)--and then, dead man walking, makes his way from a whiteman's hellhole into the wilderness, to encounter demented, depraved, deformed, deracinated trappers and bounty hunters (Lance Henriksen and Michael Wincott), as well as Nobody (Gary Farmer), an outcast Native American who's been corrupted by an informative trip to England. DEAD MAN's an American haunting, all right, yielding equal parts hilarity, horror, and exquisite pleasure. (Ursine icon Robert Mitchum's cameo is to be especially cherished.) Fri Mar 3: 1 & 8:30

unforgiven red / trois couleurs: rouge the wind will carry us the puppetmaster

UNFORGIVEN Clint Eastwood, USA, 1992; 131m Introduction: Richard T. Jameson, Editor, Film Comment You can count on one hand the number of times the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (plus most of the awards-giving critical fraternities) has hit upon the right Best Picture of the Year. This was inarguably one of those occasions. From its opening image of the town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming, under a crepuscular storm sky to its final, ghostly apocalypse, UNFORGIVEN is a summum masterwork--of its genre, of its director, of its last-of-the-icons star, and of its revisionist decade looking to put paid a century of cinema. Clint Eastwood kept David Webb Peoples's superb script in a drawer for something like sixteen years until he was well and truly seasoned--as an ever-evolving popular artist and as a man--to make it. With performances of a lifetime by the star, Gene Hackman, Frances Fisher, Richard Harris, and every last anonymous, perfectly cast cowboy-casualty. Fri Mar 3: 3:20; Sun Mar 5: 6:45 RED / TROIS COULEURS: ROUGE Krzysztof Kieslowski, France, 1994; 96m Kieslowski suffers a bit from critical revisionism these days--losing ground in the cinematic pantheon to contemporary stylists such as Kiarostami and Hou Hsaio-hsien. Still his credentials as investigator of existential mystery and fate are impeccable. There's a dark magic abroad in this Pole's movies, a little sinister, but somehow generating a sublime, saving grace. Decalogue, his oblique glosses on the Ten Commandments; Three Colors: Blue, White, Red, expressions of the ideals of the French revolution (liberty, equality and fraternity); and his projected trilogy on heaven, purgatory and hell--all suggest an artist/creator's fascination with fragile, fertile connections--and painful short circuits--among the complex beings who inhabit his worlds. In RED, a beautiful model (Irène Jacob) crosses paths with a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who likes to listen in on his neighbors' phone conversations and a young man who loves a girl who will betray him. Kieslowski makes you believe that God indeed moves in mysterious ways...in the movies, at least. Sat Mar 4: 4:15 & 10 JLG / JLG Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1995; 62m Introduction: Amy Taubin, Village Voice In the 90s, Godard appointed himself the solitary philosopher-king of cinema, and gave us what will most certainly be his magnum opus, the awesome eight-part Histoire(s) du Cinéma, in which the quicksilver technology of video allowed him to move deftly and mercurially through Western culture, employing the mechanical technology of film as his viewfinder. In the meantime, his actual work on film has become increasingly elegiacal. This 1993, hourlong self-portrait (but isn't every Godard film a self-portrait?) possesses an unparalleled serenity--the serenity of an artist who has dropped all pretenses and achieved an Olympian grandeur. Sat Mar 4: 6:15; Mon Mar 6: 10:20 THE WIND WILL CARRY US / LE VENT NOUS EMPORTERA Abbas Kiarostami, France, 1999; 118m Introduction: Richard Peña, Program Director, FSLC In a remote corner of Kurdistan, a man from Teheran arrives in a land rover, with a crew in tow. He tells the local inhabitants that he is there to do a survey, but as Abbas Kiarostami's new film moves down its own twisting, turning elliptical path, not unlike the route the man must take to the top of a mountain every time his cell phone rings, we understand that he is there for a completely different purpose: to record secretly a specific event that may or may not occur. THE WIND WILL CARRY US provides a fitting close to the 90s for Kiarostami, synthesizing aspects of his previous work into one singularly beautiful whole. Join us for this special, pre-release screening of the new film by the Filmmaker of the Decade, as almost unanimously ranked by the participants in Film Comment's 90s poll. A New York premiere. Sat Mar 4: 7:45 IDIOTS / IDIOTERNE Lars von Trier, Denmark, 1998; 118m Introduction: Richard Peña, Program Director, FSLC Written in just four days, The Idiots is perhaps the most provocative example yet of the "Dogma 95" program. Led by a feckless young fellow named Stosser, a clutch of middle-class friends living in a commune take to "spassing," acting like physically impaired retards-in public places and private parties. Interspersed are scenes of the commune's life, which include fairly graphic sexual encounters, along with the story of how a young woman attempts to become one of the group. Von Trier achieves an extra- ordinary intimacy with his actors, carefully charting the power shifts and struggles and providing clues as to the varying motivations for all this creative anarchy. Watching IDIOTS is like being thrown into a maelstrom of emotions and attitudes. Hard to tell whether Stosser is motivated by selfishness or a genuine desire to expose bourgeois prejudice against the mentally handicapped. Also difficult to ascertain whether Stosser's comrades are merely permitting themselves to be boors or liberating creative anarchy. (During a gangbang, there's explicit nudity, sexuality and idiocy.) A New York premiere. Sun Mar 5: 4:30 & 9:15 THE PUPPETMASTER / HSIMENG JENSHENG Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan, 1993; 142m Introduction: J. Hoberman, Village Voice The middle entry in Hou Hsiao-hsien's historical trilogy, 1993's THE PUPPETMASTER was truly something new in movies, collapsing fact and fiction into one moving and penetrating inquiry into the past. A tour through early 20th-century Taiwan, through the end of Japanese rule, via the life and times of the great Li Tien-lu, a regular in Hou's previous films and a puppetmaster of such renown that he performed for countless dignitaries and heads of state (including Bill Clinton). Like all of Hou's work, THE PUPPETMASTER is brutally honest, expansive yet concentrated, and ravishingly beautiful. In the words of his friend and admirer Abbas Kiarostami, it is a film "of such peace that it made me want to go home and write a letter to my mother." High praise indeed. It is also the work of a genuine master. See it again, in a brand-new print. Mon Mar 6: 1 & 5:40

anxiety / inquietude pulp fiction miller's crossing the age of innocence

ANXIETY / INQUIÉTUDE Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal / France / Spain / Switzerland, 1998; 110m Introduction: Kent Jones, Associate Director of Programming, FSLC The world's oldest active filmmaker also happens to be one of its greatest. With a vigor and clarity that most budding young talents only dream of, Manoel de Oliveira has become the keeper of the West's cultural memory, reminding us that life's mysteries are abundant, disconcertingly circuitous and ever-present. In INQUIÉTUDE, one of his greatest works, past and present, theater and cinema, dream and reality, dissolve into one lustrously beautiful meditation on anxiety, weaving together a one-act play and two stories (The Immortals, Suzy, and The Mother of the River). Jonathan Rosenbaum, one of Oliveira's most articulate champions, has likened INQUIÉTUDE to The Arabian Nights, and called it "an existential parable with every part wielded into a single and perfect shape." And in the words of Frédéric Bonnaud, this is the work of "a free filmmaker." A New York premiere. Mon Mar 6: 3:30 & 8:20 SCHINDLER'S LIST Steven Spielberg, USA, 1993; 197m "What is most amazing about this film is how completely Spielberg serves his story. The movie is brilliantly acted, written, directed and seen. Individual scenes are masterpieces of art direction, cinematography, special effects, crowd control. Yet Spielberg, the stylist whose films often have gloried in shots we are intended to notice and remember, disappears into his work. Neeson, Kingsley and the other actors are devoid of acting flourishes. There is a single-mindedness to the enterprise that is awesome." --Roger Ebert "But SCHINDLER'S LIST is a curious thing if its secret, or not so secret, effect is to celebrate Spielberg, the ways of showmen, and the power of the movies." --David Thomson, Film Comment The preceding quotes suggest both the enormous admiration and distrust aroused by Spielberg's 1993 adaptation of Thomas Kenneally's historical novel about the German industrialist who saved over 1,000 Jews from certain death at Auschwitz. Filming in black and white--with a single punctuation of red variously perceived as heartrending and / or manipulative--Spielberg never allows us the comfort of drawing away from images set in a distant past. He draws superb performances from Liam Neeson as flawed savior Schindler; Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern, the Jew who implements Schindler's plans; and Ralph Fiennes as a monstrously dissociated concentration camp overseer. There are passages in this film--as in Saving Private Ryan--that so concretize human feeling and experience it almost seems as though Spielberg has channeled paradigmatic visions from some supernal eye. Indisputable that his genius is formidable; but critics argue whether Spielberg's Holocaust movie is a profoundly moving masterpiece, a tearjerking treatment of an all-but-unfilmable subject, a magnificent act of remembrance, or the beginning of forgetting. Tues Mar 7: 1 & 7:30 PULP FICTION Quentin Tarantino, USA, 1994; 154m Introduction: Richard T. Jameson, Editor, Film Comment If the Nineties can be said to have belonged to any one American filmmaker, that man is Quentin Tarantino, whose career had not even begun when they did. Bursting on the scene in 1992 with the infectiously garrulous, dazzlingly convoluted, and outrageously violent Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino--make that "Quentin," as everyone in Hollywood and the world's moviehouses immediately felt licensed to do--set the tone and broke and reset the mold for pop-art aspirations in his generation. (That he inspired more bad films than anyone else in his time is to be regretted, but not necessarily blamed on him.) PULP FICTION elevated him from cult item to world-class film artist, starting with an exhilarating triumph at the Cannes Film Festival and continuing through a wave that saw the commercial barrier between Hollywood and the American independent cinema forever shattered. No other director has been more generous toward or inspiring of his casts--here including Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, and, in the comeback of the last quarter-century, John Travolta. Tues Mar 7: 4:35 MILLER'S CROSSING Joel & Ethan Coen, USA, 1990; 115m Introduction: Richard T. Jameson, Editor, Film Comment "Although I originally planned to sit out my magazine's poll, I soon realized there was indeed a Nineties film that 'threw the longest shadow' for me. More precisely, the shadow of its dismissal by the critical community (not to mention the Oscars and the opening night audience of the NYFF) lay over the entire decade. MILLER'S CROSSING, the best film of 1990, wasn't just a richly imagined masterpiece in its own right but also a visually elegant, intricately plotted meditation on two strains of classical American storytelling--the urban gangster story (especially via Dashiell Hammett) and the film noir. Terrific cast and gloriously twisted characters, every one of them unswervingly true to his or her own nature; superb evocation of period (late Twenties) and setting (a corrupt cousin to Hammett's 'Poisonville'); amazing Coen-dream detail (a hat tumbling in a forest, the creaking of trees above a killing ground, a thug leaning sideways to avoid banging his head on an overhead lamp).... Good grief, if the critics, Academy, and public missed a movie this good, what future was there for the classical American cinema?" --Richard T. Jameson Wed Mar 8: 1 & 5:45 THE AGE OF INNOCENCE Martin Scorsese, USA, 1993; 139m Introduction: Kathleen Murphy, Contributing Editor, Film Comment Scorsese is, quintessentially, The Man Who Loves Movies: director, writer, actor, editor, producer, historian, champion of film restoration and artists' rights...and unflaggingly enthusiastic film buff. In the Nineties he gave us GoodFellas, Casino, Kundun, Bringing Out the Dead and his stunning foray into period filmmaking: THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. Scrupulously adapted from Edith Wharton's novel, AGE perfectly catches the stifling, delicate brutality of 19th-century New York high society, as mobbed-up in its fashion as the milieux of GoodFellas and Casino. But instead of death by baseball bat or gunshot, hearts, lives and reputations in AGE are shattered by actions so subtle, so discreet, that often the victim remains for some time unaware of his / her own demise. Scorsese, Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder are all at the top of their game; this sumptuous film is a remarkable evocation of the clash between Old and New Worlds, between institutionalized morality and the ethics of individual passion. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE celebrates the terrible beauty of manners and aesthetics so inhumanly ordered as to murder creativity. Wed Mar 8: 3:15 & 8