On the Trail...
I see that Time Mag also recently put together a list of (they say) the Top 15 Best Political Films of All Time. It’s a good jumping off point, there are a couple that I still need to check out, but I’m fairly relieved. Although I had planned on posting a few of these (Manchurian Candidate, Election, All the President’s Men) I am going a different direction on a lot of others. Their focus is on narrative features, which misses out on some great documentaries and made-for-TV stuff that I plan to cover.
For part deux I’m focusing on a section of film that needs no introduction, Orson Welles’ seminal Citizen Kane (1941). The film was a not-so-subtle jab at news mogul William Randolph Hearst and the plot involving the meteoric rise and calamitous fall of Charles Foster Kane’s political career mirrored Hearst's own scuttled ambitions (while he was a twice-elected US Representative in Congress, he failed in each of his New York Mayoral and Gubernatorial bids.) While controversy hindered the film's initial release, time has been very kind to the film and it is widely regarded as perhaps the greatest ever made. While not a purely “political” film, it still contains one of the most memorably staged campaign speeches in cinematic history, one that successfully makes the man seem larger than life and is truly a benchmark of imagery.
(Ok, maybe I can think of one other film that tops it visually, one that might have even influenced Welles. Maybe?)
I love that moment at the the end of the Kane's speech, as Boss Jim Geddes looks down on the scene from high above, there is an portent of the impending manipulation that is shortly to come.
It is an oft-jumped-on hype train that holds Kane as The Greatest Movie Ever!! It was only recently usurped by Hitchcock’s Vertigo on Sight & Sound’s List after 5 decades at the #1 spot. I have also heard this refrain pooh-poohed as film snobbery at its worst, but only by non-film snobs. I'll admit to snobbery. It's not my personal favorite film, but it is so rich and deep and works on multiple levels, and I always discover something new in it every time I watch it, so I can't argue against the accolades.
...and Deep into the Woods
There is certainly no shortage of horror film lists. Here you go. Here's another. And here and here and here. It'll be unavoidable to rehash some but I'll try to find some fresh picks for you this month, but maybe not so fresh today.
If Kane is a benchmark for ALL film, then the original Night of the Living Dead is my early benchmark for horror (along with Psycho.) It's not the first zombie flick, but it is the one that flipped the switch on the genre and established many of the common tropes that we still see aped and spoofed (and notably diverged from) today: the lumbering, nearly unstoppable walkers that crave human flesh; the contagious bite that will change you into one of them; the ultimately irrelevant speculation that the mysterious origins of the abnormality must be either alien or part of a government cover-up (or both!)
George Romero made a cottage industry out of the walking dead with classic follow-ups Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Dead of the Deaddy Dead Deadness...basically everything with this guy is just dead dead dead dead dead. But not quite. I mean, if they were really dead, would they be coming for Barbara?
It’s creepy, simple, effective. Maybe not quite as gory as later films, but still a face-gnawing good time, and once the freaks start coming they do. not. stop. Still makes my all the hairs on my body stand up and then faint. Yes, my hairs faint. It’s weird, I know. Turn off the lights, blaze a candle or two, board up the windows and bar the doors.
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