The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Highly Recommended

France/West Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Les parapluies de Cherbourg

Writer/Director: Jacques Demy

Cinematographer: Jean Rabier

Composer: Michel Legrand

Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, Anne Vernon, Marc Michel, Ellen Farner, Mireille Perrey

Demy’s majestically gaudily coloured musical, in which all of the dialogue is sung by its beautiful young cast – producing a portrait of a 16-year-old girl, who falls pregnant to her petrol-pumping boyfriend just as he is called up for two year’s national service – is a very entertaining and exceedingly poignant illustration of the elasticity of the human heart. Iain.Stott

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Marnie (1964)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Writers: Jay Presson Allen, Winston Graham

Cinematographer: Robert Burks

Composer: Bernard Herrmann

Cast: Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Diane Baker, Louise Latham, Martin Gabe, Bruce Dern

Hitchcock’s troubling film – in which a serial thief (Hedren, excellent) is blackmailed into marriage by one of her victims, despite her evident psycho-sexual problems – is one of his bleakest, most ambitious efforts but, perhaps due to Connery’s rather lightweight turn, it never quite reaches the heights of his best work. Iain.Stott

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Gertrud (1964)

Essential Viewing

Denmark

Feature Film

Director: Carl Th. Dreyer

Writers: Carl Th. Dreyer, Hjalmar Söderberg

Cinematographer: Henning Bendtsen

Composer: Jørgen Jersild

Cast: Nina Pens Rode, Bendt Rothe, Ebbe Rode, Baard Owe, Axel Strøbye

Dreyer’s majestic final film – in which the attractive, refined lady of the title strives (and fails) to connect with the four men in her life, refusing to make the compromises necessary for cohabitation – is a film of exquisite beauty, full of delightfully restrained performances and ravishingly expressive mise en scène. Iain.Stott

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I Am Cuba (1964)

Highly Recommended

Cuba/Soviet Union

Feature Film

Original Title: Soy Cuba

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov

Writers: Enrique Pineda Barnet, Evgueny Evtushenko

Cinematographer: Sergei Urusevsky

Composer: Carlos Fariñas

Cast: Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood, José Gallardo, Raúl García, Luz María Collazo, Raquel Revuelta

Although its championing of martyrdom leaves something of a bad taste, the film’s general rightness – an attack against tyranny, exploitation, and nefarious foreign interest – and the sheer poetic brilliance of its cinematic technique, make watching this fourth (and unfortunately final) collaboration between Kalatozov and Urusevsky an overwhelmingly memorable experience. Iain.Stott

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The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)

Recommended

Italy/France

Feature Film

Original Title: Il vangelo secondo Matteo

Writer/Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini

Cinematographer: Tonino Delli Colli

Cast: Enrique Irazoqui, Margherita Caruso, Susanna Pasolini, Marcello Morante, Ferruccio Nuzzo, Otello Sestili, Rossana Di Rocco, Paola Tedesco

Although it feels a little rushed at times and could be somewhat confusing for those with merely a passing knowledge of the New Testament, Pasolini’s dexterous adaptation of the eponymous book – a retelling of the life of Jesus Christ, the son of God, from immaculate conception to ascension to heaven – is never less than compelling. Iain.Stott

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Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Essential Viewing

Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Ladri di biciclette

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Writers: Oreste Biancoli, Suso D'Amico, Vittorio De Sica, Adolfo Franci, Gerardo Guerrieri, Cesare Zavattini, Luigi Bartolini

Cinematographer: Carlo Montuori

Composer: Alessandro Cicognini

Cast: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Gino Saltamerenda, Vittorio Antonucci, Giulio Chiari

Avoiding the sentimentality that often blighted his subsequent films, De Sica’s magnum opus – a delightfully simple tale about a man and his young son traversing the streets of Rome in search of a stolen bicycle, which is essential to their family’s survival – is a beautiful and moving exploration of the devastating effects of post-war privations on the dignity of ordinary people. Iain.Stott

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All the President's Men (1976)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Writers: William Goldman, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward

Cinematographer: Gordon Willis

Composer: David Shire

Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook

Based on the book by the Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, detailing their uncovering of a government conspiracy, involving a break-in at the national headquarters of the Democrats, which lead, ultimately, to the resignation of Richard Nixon from the post of president of the United States of America, this expertly crafted, beautifully-paced film, boasting exemplary performances and excellent dialogue, is a Hollywood thriller of the first order. Iain.Stott

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Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974)

Essential Viewing

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Céline et Julie vont en bateau

Director: Jacques Rivette

Writers: Juliet Berto, Eduardo de Gregorio, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, Jacques Rivette

Cinematographer: Jacques Renard

Composer: Jean-Marie Sénia

Cast: Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, Barbet Schroeder, Nathalie Asnar

Silly, enigmatic, and completely irresistible, Céline and Julie Go Boating is a weirdly wonderful and wonderfully weird film; a film about everything and nothing, comprising of several nonsense filled vignettes, in which two attractive, twenty-something, Parisian women – one a librarian, the other a magician – who share a flat, take it in turns visiting a haunted mansion. Iain.Stott

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The African Queen (1951)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Feature Film

Director: John Huston

Writers: James Agee, John Huston, C.S. Forester

Cinematographer: Jack Cardiff

Composer: Allan Gray

Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley, Peter Bull

Huston’s light-hearted take on Forester’s novel – following a rough-arsed sailor and a prim-and-proper missionary’s attempts to traverse a dangerous river in German East Africa following the outbreak of the First World War, alternately endeavouring to avoid or confront the German forces – is really rather silly and never vaguely believable, but Bogart and Hepburn’s full-blooded performances just about make up for the film’s numerous faults (not the least of which being Gray’s horribly incongruous score). Iain.Stott

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Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

Essential Viewing

West Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes

Writer/Director: Werner Herzog

Cinematographer: Thomas Mauch

Composer: Popol Vuh

Cast: Klaus Kinski, Helena Rojo, Del Negro, Ruy Guerra, Peter Berling, Cecilia Rivera, Dan Ades, Edward Roland

A group of Spanish explorers traverse the jungles and rivers of South America in search of fame, fortune, and El Dorado, stubbornly and bloodily making no concessions to rationality nor native pressures, in Herzog’s hallucinatory examination of colonial madness and greed, which boasts a cracking performance from Kinski. Iain.Stott

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Jaws (1975)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writers: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb

Cinematographer: Bill Butler

Composer: John Williams

Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton

Spielberg’s ridiculously popular film – depicting a small island tourist resort’s chief of police’s attempts to battle greed, corruption, and a bloody big shark – is a thriller of mixed quality; the film’s performances are generally good, but Shaw’s mannered turn sticks out like a saw thumb compared to Scheider and Dreyfuss’s more refined, naturalistic performances, and Williams’s rather unsophisticated score can wear after a while, but the film is generally diverting, often entertaining, and by-and-large well made. Iain.Stott

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The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Jonathan Demme

Writers: Ted Tally, Thomas Harris

Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto

Composer: Howard Shore

Cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Anthony Heald, Ted Levine, Brooke Smith

Hopkins’s performance hasn’t aged well at all, particularly when measured against Levine’s subtly creepy turn, but this film – once Hannibal the Cannibal’s cheesiness is put on the backburner – is an absolutely cracking thriller, with a seldom better Foster producing a magnetic performance, and Demme wowing us with his eye-catching yet refined direction. Iain.Stott

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Ace in the Hole (1951)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Director: Billy Wilder

Writers: Walter Newman, Lesser Samuels, Billy Wilder

Cinematographer: Charles B. Lang Jr.

Composer: Hugo Friedhofer

Cast: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Bob Arthur, Porter Hall, Frank Cady, Richard Benedict, Ray Teal, Lewis Martin, John Berkes

Douglas’s down-on-his-luck, slumming, formerly renowned journalist stumbles upon a potential big story when a small town man becomes trapped by a cave-in, which the unscrupulous scribbler then strives to drag out for as long as possible, in Wilder’s cynical portrait of cynicism, which brilliantly presents an unrelentingly bleak account of mankind. Iain.Stott

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Muriel ou Le Temps d'un Retour (1963)

Recommended

France/Italy/West Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour

Director: Alain Resnais

Writer: Jean Cayrol

Cinematographer: Sacha Vierny

Composer: Hans Werner Henze

Cast: Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, Nita Klein, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée

The excellent Seyrig plays a widow, living with her step-son, who invites a former lover, whom she hasn’t seen for twenty-odd years, to visit her in her Boulogne home, but, unexpectedly, he also brings along his “niece” and a whole lot of memories, in Resnais’s third feature, an enigmatic, unsettling, and menacing examination of the organic nature of memory. Iain.Stott

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Sátántangó (1994)

Essential Viewing

Hungary/Germany/Switzerland

Feature Film

Director: Tarr Béla

Writers: Krasznahorkai László, Tarr Béla

Cinematographer: Medvigy Gábor

Composer: Vig Mihály

Cast: Vig Mihály, feLugossy László, Horváth Putyi, Albert Éva Almássy, Derzsi János, Szajki Irén, Járai Alfréd, Székely B. Miklós, Gaál Erzsébet, Bók Erika, Peter Berling

Tarr’s mammoth adaptation of Krasznahorkai’s novel – a beautiful, lugubriously paced piece of Hungarian miserabilism, told in 12 interweaving, overlapping parts, using a tango like structure, centring on a failing, decaying collective farm – is a film of incredible formal elegance, historical, allegorical weight, and, above all else, a film reeking of humanity in all its lowest, most egregious forms. Iain.Stott

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Carrie (1976)

Highly Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Brian De Palma

Writers: Lawrence D. Cohen, Brian De Palma

Cinematographer: Mario Tosi

Composer: Pino Donaggio

Cast: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, William Katt, Betty Buckley, Nancy Allen, John Travolta

Carrie White (an outstanding Spacek), the product of a repressed upbringing at the hands of her deranged, fanatical Christian mother, a late bloomer, gets invited to the senior prom by the handsome, charismatic athlete Tommy Ross, but not all of her classmates wish her the dream night that she deserves, in De Palma’s viscerally entertaining horror film, which comes across like a remake of Psycho (1960) and American Graffiti (1973) directed by David Hamilton. Iain.Stott

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Shoeshine (1946)

Recommended

Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Sciuscià

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Writers: Sergio Amidei, Adolfo Franci, C.G. Viola, Cesare Zavattini

Cinematographer: Anchise Brizzi

Composer: Alessandro Cicognini

Cast: Franco Interlenghi, Rinaldo Smordoni, Annielo Mele, Bruno Ortenzi, Emilio Cigoli

De Sica’s moving examination of the effects of post-war privation on the children of Rome – focussing on two young friends that work as shoeshine boys, who are tricked into becoming accessories to burglary, and end up in a juvenile prison – is a passionate and heartfelt if perhaps occasionally slightly manipulative work, which tugs gently at the heartstrings. Iain.Stott

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The Nutty Professor (1963)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Jerry Lewis

Writers: Jerry Lewis, Bill Richmond

Cinematographer: W. Wallace Kelley

Composer: Walter Scharf

Cast: Jerry Lewis, Stella Stevens, Del Moore, Kathleen Freeman, Howard Morris, Elvia Allman

Lewis’s comic take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll & Hyde - in which Lewis’s timid, geeky science lecturer invents a potion that changes him into a brash, obnoxious, testosterone-dripping buffoon… whom everyone loves!?! – proves to be a gaudy, manic, delightfully satirical, and often quite hilarious look at contemporary social values. Iain.Stott

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Les Diaboliques (1955)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Les diaboliques

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Writers: Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jérôme Géronimi, Frédéric Grendel, René Masson, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac

Cinematographer: Armand Thirard

Composer: Georges Van Parys

Cast: Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Jean Brochard, Pierre Larquey, Michel Serrault, Thérèse Dorny, Noël Roquevert, Yves-Marie Maurin

The wife and mistress of an abusive boarding school headmaster conspire to murder him, making it look like an accidental drowning, but when the body disappears its whereabouts causes tensions to rise, in Clouzot’s outstanding suspense thriller; a Hitchcockian gem, filled with thrills, shocks, laughter, and a great deal of humanity (in all its various forms). Iain.Stott

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Faces (1968)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: John Cassavetes

Cinematographer: Al Ruban

Cast: John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Fred Draper, Seymour Cassel, Val Avery

Cassavetes’s return to independent film-making after a mildly successful if rather unhappy flirtation with Hollywood – an intense, vital, and thoroughly authentic feeling portrait of unhappy, dysfunctional, alcohol-soaked lives – is, with its outstanding performances and improvisatory aesthetic, a powerful, painful, and quite brilliant masterpiece. Iain.Stott

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