cardinale

The 60s certainly marked a significant change in cinema around the world. The following list is my favorite movies from the year 1960 to 1969. I would highlight the word favorite, meaning I am not claiming this to be an objective list of greatest movies. I am actually fairly convinced the most significant film I saw from this decade was Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966), and yet it did not land upon me personally to the same extent as the films below... yet. A quick note, I decided to list 11 movies, because #6 is short form, thus not a feature length movie; to avoid quibbles, I simply added a movie. 

You came for the list, so let us get to it.

11. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

[kaleidoscope effect; eerie music]

The last time I had seen this movie was my senior year of high school. A friend had chosen to watch this for his birthday all-nighter, and as the credits rolled I looked around to see if anyone else was up for figuring out what we had just experienced. I believe I found only one other person still awake (and very confused). I had actually grown up seeing various parts of the movie, though I believe the Stargate sequence had always been severely edited for TV purposes, but this was my first full-fledged sitdown with Kubrick’s esoteric science fiction masterpiece. In the following year of college, I pieced together most of what had been presented, either in discussing worldviews or discussing the film specifically with others who understood more of 2001’s voice. All that to say, this recent viewing allowed me to sit back and better appreciate the visual and technical splendor of the whole, along with enjoying Kubrick’s confidence and courage as an artist to credit his audience with intelligence. I do believe the film suffers from Kubrick’s common procedure of missing a human component in most of his work. In fact, seemingly with intention, you are more caught up in the pathos of the murderous HAL, than you generally are his emotionless victims. 

Watchability: I tend to steer people away from this movie. However if you can make it by without fully understanding what is going on, it is worth a watch. It also has some of the grandest visuals in cinema.

10. Pierrot le Fou (1965)
Directed by Jean-Luc Goddard

"That’s what makes me sad: life is so different from books. I wish it were the same: clear, logical, organized."

Breathless (1960) seems to be the more highly regarded Goddard work of the 60s, but Pierrot le Fou really struck a note in my imagination. Essentially you watch two characters live out the romance they see in their movies and their books, as you watch reality twist around them. Naturally they would have an audience. Need some drama? Well how about there’s a dead body in the room? Their love story even shapes and reshapes itself to follow the romantic storied life. Whenever reality would step in, they seize their experience and make it the story of a novel. It seemed a telling observation of a society steeped in narrative and told in the Goddard style.

Watchability: So... weird French movie. Does that scare you away? If not, perhaps give it a gander. Breathless may be where you should start watching Goddard.

9. The Lion in Winter (1968)
Directed by Anthony Harvey

My life, when it is written, will read better than it lived. Henry Fitz-Empress, first Plantagenet, a king at 21, the ablest soldier of an able time. He led men well, he cared for justice when he could and ruled, for 30 years, a state as great as Charlemagne’s. He married out of love, a woman out of legend. Not in Alexandria, or Rome, or Camelot has there been such a queen. She bore him many children... but no sons. King Henry had no sons. He had three whiskered things but he disowned them.

The Lion in Winter is essentially a vehicle to watch Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn attempt to outdo one another in scene stealing. As for the script, think Shakespeare meets Billy Wilder. You could argue the script is overdone, but O’Toole and Hepburn deliver it with such relish that you can’t help but enjoy. O’Toole is back in the role of Henry II after the also excellent but lesser Becket (1964), but his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, got a significant upgrade in Hepburn. The audience gets to sit in on the family holiday as Eleanor is let out of prison as a Christmas present and the royal pair feud over who inherits the throne after Henry’s death. The princes are all a bit cardboard, but perhaps that casts a better light on the crowned couple. (This is Anthony Hopkins’s first movie, starring as their son, Richard (later the Lionheart)) Perhaps the one other actor to make a decent turn is Timothy Dalton as King Philip of France, but still he is a mere shadow in the light of O’Toole’s and Hepburn’s stars. All day I could watch Henry II barking or Eleanor twist her words like a feather into a knife. The movie tries to paint a dirty and dreary Middle Ages, which proves an interesting contrast to the beautiful anachronistic language. 

Watchability: If you like twisting political intrigue, some overwrought but well performed dialogue, historical setting, stellar acting, give this movie a try. Think Aaron Sorkin. Coupled with Becket, you get quite a scope of Henry II’s reign (though not always historically accurate).

8. A Raisin in the Sun (1961)
Directed by Daniel Petrie

“I’m thirty-five years old; I been married eleven years and I got a boy who sleeps in the living room – (very quietly) – and all I got to give him are stories about how rich white people live…”

This movie was a breath of fresh air in the midst of my historical viewings. A Raisin in the Sun is a near perfect script detailing the life of an African American family in Chicago. It follows the unique struggles and desires facing a black family in America. Obviously, Sydney Poitier is the big name here, but the movie is superbly acted across the board. You’ll cry, you’ll laugh, you’ll be caught up in the life of this family. Originally a stage play by Lorraine Hansberry, you could argue the movie is not cinematic, but this better grounds the reality of their circumstance. It is a strikingly human tale.

Watchability: Yes. Watch it. It is a perfect apartment family drama.

7. The Apartment (1960)
Directed by Billy Wilder

C.C. Baxter: The mirror... it's broken. 
Fran Kubelik: Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.

Speaking of apartments... This movie is a very different thing. Jack Lemmon stars in another Billy Wilder movie after the success of Some Like It Hot (1959) and while Lemmon's humor is ever present, Wilder dances the line he may dance the very best, between humor and drama. Attain the heights of humor and the very depths of humanity's sin. And yet through the arcs of Lemmon's C.C. Baxter and Shirley MacLaine's Fran Kubelik you see hope arise. Wilder wins the award for having a movie on each of my past three decade lists. 

Watchability: Oh yeah. Is there an unwatchable Wilder movie? The biggest obstacle may be that the movie goes to some dark places alongside the charm of the film.

6. La Jetée (1962)

Directed by Chris Marker 

Nothing distinguishes memories from ordinary moments. Only later do they become memorable by the scars they leave.

Here is the film that caused me to list 11 total movies. Why? Because La Jetée comes in at the run time of 28 minutes, possibly leading some to question its place on this list. I never called this a full-length feature Top 10, but really I may just be coming up with an excuse to add a movie. Likewise, the movie is a bit different than what you are used to because it is composed primarily of still photos with a voice-over narrator. So, "motion" picture may not be its best descriptor. Regardless, I love this little film. The film is a time travel story of a most unique nature. Unique that is until it became the basis for the film 12 Monkeys (1995). Part existential French film, part romance. part time travel, I just love this thing.

Watchability: It probably is not for everyone, but it is also only 28 minutes... Perhaps that makes it worth a watch. If you hate subtitles, there is an English dub that due to the nature of the film, you don't even realize the difference.

5. Il Gattopardo or The Leopard (1963)
Directed by Luchino Visconti

"Sleep, my dear Chevalley, eternal sleep, that is what Sicilians want. And they will always resent anyone who tries to awaken them, even to bring them the most wonderful of gifts. And, between ourselves, I doubt very strongly whether this new Kingdom has very many gifts for us in its luggage. All Sicilian expression, even the most violent, is really a wish for death. Our sensuality, wish for oblivion. Our knifings and shootings, a hankering after extinction. Our laziness, our spiced and drugged sherbets, a desire for voluptuous immobility, that is... for death again.“

In a number of ways, The Leopard is an Italian Gone with the Wind (but better...). Even set in 1860 during a civil war, it details the demise of the Sicilian aristocracy even while they dance their lives away at gaudy balls. The entire last hour of this movie is dedicated to blind nobles happily going about a meaningless party. Burt Lancaster's Don Fabrizio Corbera alone seems to have the eyes to see the emptiness of their lives and the changing times. It is a gorgeous period piece of a time and place that I am sorely lacking knowledge. It is gloriously epic and a sight to behold. I should note, when Netflix sent me the discs originally, they sent me the English dubbed version, which surprised me as I had not realized I could order a different copy. After a quick bit of research, I found the Italian version was longer, meaning I quickly sent the English version back and watched the full 205 minute version. Travesty averted...

Watchability: So yeah, this one is long. And some would not consider it all (especially the hour-long ball) gripping entertainment. But I found it mesmerizing. If you like your patient period epics where the movie does not hold the audience's hand, give this a try.

4. Nattvardsgästerna or Winter Light (1964)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman

"I had this fleeting hope... That everything wouldn't turn out to be illusions, dreams and lies."

The second movie in Bergman's Silence of God trilogy, Winter Light is a solemn look into the heart of a despairing pastor suffering under his inability to understand and hear God. We see this affect his capacity to love and live, withering under the stress. I found it a captivating look into faith, even if from a differing view than my own. In typical Bergman form, we see a man's soul laid bare and yet, in the end... a spark of hope (though I suspect others might disagree).

Watchability: Ingmar Bergman films are not for everyone. They are quiet, introspective, somber explorations of man and often God. And subtitles. If I have not scared you away yet, maybe give it a try.

3. Otto e Mezzo or 8 ½ (1963)
Directed by Federico Fellini

"I thought my ideas were so clear. I wanted to make an honest film. No lies whatsoever. I thought I had something so simple to say. Something useful to everybody. A film that could help bury forever all those dead things we carry within ourselves. Instead, I'm the one without the courage to bury anything at all. When did I go wrong? I really have nothing to say, but I want to say it all the same."

Have you ever heard of the adjective Felliniesque? It usually refers to a rather bizarre turn of film and is of course generated by the works of the Italian film director Federico Fellini. Thus, Fellini gets a bad rap from your typical moviegoer. However, I was surprised a few years back when I took my first whirl on the Fellini carousel in watching 8 1/2 to find that in its dreamlike odyssey, the film proved utterly relatable. Utterly. It is not so much how you interact with the exterior reality, but he instead captures the internal reality under the assaults of the real world. 8 1/2 tells the story of a director under the duress of writer's block, which (as with any writer's block story) perfectly mirrors his life. The film very quickly drops you into its absurdist fancy and never lets up. 8 1/2 is about a man trapped and looking desperately for escape. What is more human than that?

Watchability: Okay, so this time it is a weird Italian movie. Still here? The movie is strange, but the strangest thing is how easy it is to understand. I can't promise you will love it. If you like film and want to learn what this Fellini guy is all about, start here.

2. C'era una volta il West or Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Directed by Sergio Leone

Harmonica: So, you found out you're not a businessman after all.

Frank: Just a man.

Harmonica: An ancient race.

And here we have my favorite Western, Once Upon a Time in the West. As Spaghetti Westerns (Westerns made in Italy) go, I find there are two camps: The The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) camp and the Once Upon a Time in the West camp. People can enjoy both, but it seems like only one can be truly loved. Well here's my flag. Once Upon a Time in the West is Leone's Western finale. He tries to distill the Western into its most obvious variables: in ways making it the simplest of structures... while ultimately building a towering monolith. You see elements of each of his prior film Westerns, the Dollars Trilogy: we see the concealed hero, never knowing his motivations as in A Fistful of Dollars (1964); we see the final reveal of the villains ancient treachery leading to the vengeance quest from For a Few Dollars More (1965); and we have the return of a Good, a Bad, and an Ugly only this time we add a Beauty as well. Apparently Leone, along with Bernardo Bertolucci decided to revisit all of the American classics and meld them in with his cinematic vision of the American West. And what comes out is this operatic masterpiece. (Speaking of music, Ennio Morricone is back: perhaps the score is not as good as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but it is just as much an actor as the stars.)

Watchability: In a sense, not much happens in this long movie. Leone loves the build up to action more than action itself. But... I mean I love this movie. For some people it is just a long drawn-out dubbed affair however.

1. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Directed by David Lean

Jackson Bentley: What is it, Major Lawrence, that attracts you personally to the desert?

T.E. Lawrence: It's clean.

If I am honest, I had a really hard time deciding between my top two ranks for my 60s films. Ultimately, I decided to land on what I deem the more objectively superior film. Or in other words, I subjectively decided that Lawrence of Arabia is objectively better than Once Upon a Time in the West.   This film is the great film epic. Peter O'Toole plays the titular part of T. E. Lawrence and delivers one of the greatest film performances of all time. A peculiar man who has no home, until he finds it in the sand-swept desert of Arabia. You watch the rise of greatness and the fall of hubris all in the glorious sweep of Lean's three and half hour hour historical epic. 

Watchability: I recently saw some click bait that was promising a list of movies that film snobs should stop telling people to watch... the picture that was intended to invite a click was a still from Lawrence of Arabia. Well, here's how you can rebel against click baiters... watch this movie. I am of the opinion that it stands up perfectly well. I am also growing sad over learning that many my age and younger have never heard of 'Awrence. Honestly, from my list here, I would say this film stands up there with A Raisin in the Sun and The Apartment as the most watchable herein. But what do I know...