#21 Seven Samurai (1954)

Seven Samurai (1954)

"A brilliant epic"

A defenseless village is beset by bandits, who vow they will return in several months’ time to finish the pathetic town off for good. With no soldiers or strongmen of their own, and no means to defend themselves, the hopeless villagers pool all the remnants of their money together and travel to the local town to try to hire a band of soldiers to defend the village for them. With their meager savings, the villagers manage to wrangle together a rag tag bunch of old, scrappy men who, against all odds, manage to finally hold off the attack, saving the village for good. This age-old story is one that is well known to just about anyone with access to a television or modern popular culture, and it is most well done in Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant 1954 film “Seven Samurai”. This epic is stupendously shot, brilliantly acted, and absolutely ranks among the best films of all time.

The story of the film is essentially what was listed above. A gang of bandits attacked a small, poor village, and decided that, since the village has already been raided, the bandits should return in several months’ time after the harvest to take whatever the villagers have left. Destitute and desperate, the villagers turn to the elder, who advise the villagers to travel to a nearby town to collect some samurai to defend them. After many short fallings and failure, the villagers manage to gain the allegiance of Shimada Kambei, a clever, wizened old samurai who has seen his fair share of battle. Through sheer force of will, Kambei manages to enlist the aid of 6 other samurai, all with their own select skills and abilities that make for a formidable force which manage to successfully stave off the numerous attacks of the bandits.

The film was directed by legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, who was a monumental force not just in Japanese film, but in action film in general, creating many tropes, styles, and methods which would come to be staples in the Western and Action genres even up until today. You can see many of these styles today as the film is just spectacularly shot and directed. There are many cool scenes in this film. My personal favorite is when one of the samurai, Kyuzo duels with a challenger in a scene that has been copied so many times that it is certainly a cliché now. The two samurai stand opposed, gauging each other’s skills, each changing his stance periodically. Finally, the challenger makes his attack, and Kyuzo cuts him down with incredible ease. He then sheathes his sword and walks away. It was a powerful scene, made all the more poignant by the silence that encompasses the whole of it. I also love the minimalism of the film. Another thing I really like about the way the film is shot is the abrupt shifts from scene to scene. At first it’s a little jarring, but once you get used to it, the way Kurosawa shifts from saying what’s going to happen, to showing it happening is very artfully done, and on the whole makes the film all the better.

The film is not just well directed and shot, but is also very skillfully acted. Each of the samurai is very unique in their personalities, and it is all very well shown. From the quiet intensity of the master samurai Kyuzo (Seiji Miyaguchi), to the powerful leadership and gravitas carried by Shimada Kambei, played by Takashi Shimura, to the naïve optimism of Ohamoto Katsuhiro (Isao Kimura), to the doting, almost fatherly characteristics of Shichiroji (Daisuke Kato), all of these actors play their roles stupendously. The real show stealer of the movie, however, was the lowly peasant-born masquerading as a samurai named Kikuchiyo, who is played by the legendary actor Toshiro Mifune. Toshiro plays the role to perfection, showing the cynicism of the character, while also at all times displaying the deep seated loathing of the class from whence he came, and the constant attempts to be something he is not, it is all done so well, words cannot aptly describe the true skill with which this role is played.

What I truly love above all, however, are the themes shown in this movie. I watched this movie at the same time as I was taking a class on the history of the Tokugawa Era of Japan, a time in which the era of the samurai or more specifically, the ronin as is popularly envisaged was coming to an end, and that is what this movie encapsulates. This movie deals with pride versus honor, with the first couple samurai who were approached by the peasants turning the villagers down out of hand because they were peasants and had no money. The samurai who do take up the plight of the villagers, on the other hand, come to their aid out of pity for the villagers, in the case of Shimada Kambei or else a naïve ideal of honor and bushido, in the case of Ohamoto Katsuhiro, or finally, out of desire to fight and test ones skills, in the case of Kyuzo.

At the same time, the film investigates the plight of the villagers, who saw no difference between the robbing of their harvests by the bandits, and the robbing of their harvests by the bakufu, who refused to provide protection when asked anyway. However simultaneously through Kikuchiyo, we are shown that the “honest and defenseless villager” is not as defenseless and honorable as we are led to believe, though the villager is also shown to be justified in his actions.

Ultimately, however, the film is about the death of Japan, represented by the samurai. This film was released in 1954, which was in the thick of the postwar period, a time of deep shame and humiliation for the Japanese, who witnessed the emasculation of their once mighty empire, and their subordination to the Americans. All of these sentiments are displayed in the movie as the real losers in the film are the samurai; four of the seven are killed, but not just killed, but shot down by muskets, a symbol of advancement and changing times; the era of the sword was coming to an end. One of the survivors of the fight, Ohamoto Katsuhiro, the young, naïve, optimistic young samurai who idolizes the samurai he fights alongside throughout the battle, is left jaded and cynical by the senseless killing he witnesses, and by the loss of the love he finds in the village. Katsuhiro represents the jaded sentiments of the generation following the Second World War, and the true defeat of the Japanese people. The final line of the film, delivered by the other two surviving samurai, Shimada Kambei to Shichiroji is the most important:

Kambei Shimada: “So. Again we are defeated.”
[Shichiroji looks puzzled at Kambei]
Kambei Shimada: “The farmers have won. Not us.”

This truly is a remarkable piece of work, and is definitely one of the best I have seen so far. The wonderful directing, combined with the stupendous acting, bottled together into a wonderfully told story make for filmmaking magic. Though the film may seem long , coming in at nearly 4 hours, it is engaging for every minute of it, and by the end, I was at the edge of my seat. The film starts slow, but picks up momentum at such a rate that you hardly notice yourself falling in love with it. This movie is truly a must see for just about anyone, really.

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#20 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Sorry for the delay in getting the next movie on the list up again. I’ve been getting rather lazy lately, and I’m hoping to fix that now. Ideally I’m going to build up a nice reserve of movies reviewed so that making deadlines will not be so hectic to me (usually these reviews are being written literally 10 minutes before they are posted. Anyway, our movie for today is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a western action- comedy starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Unfortunately, I’m writing this review a month and a half after having seen the film, but it’s still pretty firm in my mind. I’m just going to go ahead and say now that I really, really liked this film. The great chemistry between Redford and Newman, the excellent dialogue, and the interesting take on the “buddy cop” film genre (Which hadn’t actually started yet) that this movie plays at really are what make this movie one of the best I’ve seen off this list (I know, I say that a lot).

This movie takes place in the late 1890s during the Spanish-American War in, what is presumably the American Southwest. The Hole in the Wall gang, led by Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) are making a name for themselves as robbers of repute. The story starts with a sort of “silent film” which sets the story of the film, setting up the “legend of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. The film then takes us straight to the action, with the two sitting in a saloon when they are approached by a man who challenges them to a duel, resulting in the Sundance Kid showing off his skills with a pistol. What I found interesting about this scene was that the whole thing was filmed in black and white, obviously trying to play itself into the classic “old west” films. The film then switches into color, and from there the movie starts to actually develop the story, with the two banditos robbing trains, then being chased across the southwest, then fleeing to the East, then fleeing to Bolivia, and trying to make ends me there. All the while the two of them are making snarky remarks at one another and vying for the hand of the romantic interest of the film – Etta Place, played by Katharine Ross.

One thing I really like about this film is the way in which the movie makes everything feel really surreal. You the viewer never truly feels that the two of them are in danger of being killed, even though that risk is great throughout most of the movie. The other thing I love about this movie is just how quotable it is. This movie has so many great lines, and the majority of my notes consist of writing down lines from the film.

As I’m implying above, I thoroughly loved the performances given by Newman, Redford, and Ross. Newman (The Brains of the Operation) and Redford (The skilled marksman) had such great chemistry together, and their timing and delivery of lines was absolutely stupendous. Everything about them in this film just flat out worked. I thought the direction of this film was also quite good. I liked the way the director George Roy Hill plays with different film methods, with the grainy silent film in the beginning, the shift to black and white, and then to color, and even more I liked the play with the montage about the trio’s experiences in New York, told through old-timey photographs. I also like Hill’s decision to not translate the Spanish used in the film when the trio travels to Bolivia, for those who don’t speak Spanish, it puts the viewer in the same position as the trio, facing a severe language barrier, and gives a nice bilingual bonus to those who do speak the language.

The Cinematography in this film is also stupendous, particularly the epic long shots in the film which really gives you a sense of the scale and epicness of the terrain that we’re talking about. The most striking scene to me is the last scene of the film, when Butch and the Sundance Kid run into what is essentially a firing squad when the military corners them in a small village in Bolivia. The shot is taken from the perspective of the army, taken far back, and you can see the two run out of the house they are taken cover in as the screen turns yellow, establishing two robbers as legendary figures, meanwhile in the background you can hear shots fired in unison multiple times.

The music in this film was also quite good. The mixture of western-ey sounds, with abrupt, almost random stops and shifts to different genres initially feels very scattered, but actually works very well with the film as a whole. Not to mention this film has that famous song “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head” which is a very well known (and awesome) song .

This truly is an awesome film, and I imagine it is on the list for a number of reasons. The first I’d say, is for the film’s ability to blend comedy and action into a film that is truly entertaining from start to finish. The second is probably because of its great influence not just on film, but on pop culture (many of the lines in this film are still repeated, and who hasn’t sung Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head before?). This film is almost certainly on the list because of the incredible chemistry between Redford and Newman, two of the monolithic action/drama stars of that era, and the two of them together, working so well together, is probably one of the best male-male actor pairings of all time. Finally, I’d say that this film is on the list because, arguably, this is the first buddy cop film ever. Even though the movie is about banditos, the film really does lay down a lot of the tropes and characteristics that make up a buddy cop film, making it exceedingly influential as an important film. This truly great film really is a must see for everyone.

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#19 Rocky (1976)

Rocky (1976)

"A distinctly American Film"

I’m back, baby. That’s right folks, I am not dead, and therefore the mission continues. We are 18 movies down, leaving only 1063 to go! And for our 19th movie we have a classic. This is one of the most referenced movies I’d argue in American film. Who hasn’t heard or seen the Rocky montage scene, with the big brass sound while he climbs those steps in Philadelphia, and if you haven’t seen that scene, who hasn’t seen another television show or movie make an homage to that scene? Now previous to last night, I had actually never seen the film, so these are my thoughts on the film without any previous experiences with it, so let’s take a look inside, eh?

The movie opens in a dingy boxing studio. Sylvester Stallone is boxing another man. The fight looks rough, neither of them is particularly graceful, but Stallone – Rocky – takes the man down. Rocky then retires to the dressing room where he takes a load off and nurses his wounds, beside him is another man doing likewise. Rocky gets 40 dollars, after fees, for winning the fight. It is at this point the credits roll, which I find very interesting. Behind the credits we can see Rocky walking through the dirty, dingy streets of Philadelphia. He enters his home, and the scene does not appear much better. It becomes apparent that Rocky is a working-class man, the pinnacle of Philadelphia-ness. He has a crush on a woman – Adrian – who is a very plain and shy woman who works in a pet shop he frequents. Most of his time is divided between his jobs – he works as hired muscle for a loan shark, and training in a boxing gym. Even at this gym he is not respected, as he loses his locker, a spot he’s held for 6 years, just because an up and coming stud needs one. Rocky’s trainer tells him “You’re not a contender, you’re a tomato”.

Rocky looks up to a man named Apollo Creed, who is the heavyweight champion of the world. Creed wants to have a bicentennial fight on new year’s eve, 1976, but his opponent has to bow out 5 weeks before the fight. Due to contractual and advertising obligations, Creed cannot afford to cancel the fight, so he comes upon a brilliant idea – he decides to select an unknown, unprofessional fighter to contest him. Ultimately he comes upon the name of Rocky, who he ends up selecting not for skill, or record, but for name – The Italian Stallion – a name he thinks will be easy to sell to the people. His coach even warns him against it, due to Balboa’s left-handedness, something Creed shrugs off with ease.

Upon his selection, Rocky is instantly beset upon by those who once derided him. People that scoffed at him now want his autograph, want to be his friend, and want to help him. The two that come to the forefront are his trainer, who sold out his locker and once called him “a tomato”, and Paulie, a friend who was really little more of a leach, trying to use Rocky to get him a job. He’s also important because he’s the brother of Adrian, the girl from the Pet shop who Rocky begins to date just previous to his being selected to fight. Ultimately Rocky ends up humbling the two with loud outbursts, but eventually accepts their offers of help.

What I found truly interesting during the training portions of the movie are the stark differences between Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed. Rocky is a humble, working class man, his speech is ungrammatical and plain. He’s not a particularly well trained fighter, with more guts than stuff. But also with Rocky is a good sense of morality. He shows concern, not just for his friends, but for anyone he comes across, trying to prevent a neighborhood girl he knows from falling in with the wrong crowd, helping a drunken man by taking him inside to keep him out of the cold. At the same time Rocky is proud, he takes personal insults extremely personally, lashing out at anyone who implies some bad mark on his character. This translates to his reasoning behind fighting. Rocky doesn’t fight for money or fame, as he tells Adrian on a date, but he does it to show that he “ain’t no bum”, to tell everyone that he’s not a nothing. Winning or being famous is irrelevant. In essence, Rocky encapsulates the working man. Creed, on the other hand, is the exact antithesis to Rocky in every way. He’s very well spoken, displaying a penchant for the flowery in prose. He’s also very greedy, and extremely arrogant. The fact that the man shows arrogance while having a Greek name is no coincidence, his hubris is the stuff of Greek tragedy, the most stark example coming when his trainer is watching videos of Rocky, and warning Apollo that Rocky means business, something that Apollo shrugs off. What’s more is Apollo’s reason to fight. He fights for wealth, he chooses his opponent because “it sounds catchy and is easy to sell”. What’s more remarkable is that most of the scenes with Rocky display him training, and training hard, the only scenes we see of Apollo is lounging about, or interacting with advertising men.

Anyways, Rocky sets to training and gets into shape. The famous montage happens and we see Rocky climbing stairs with ease. What I found more interesting was the scenes afterwards. Rocky visits the stadium the night before the fight, where he’s met by the fight promoter. Rocky tells the promoter that they got his picture wrong, referencing a depiction of him in the stadium. The promoter says, “Doesn’t really matter kid, so long as you give us a great show”. This scene results in the self-doubt moment common in the hero’s tale. Rocky is unsure that he wants to go through with the fight as he realizes that the whole thing is a sham, and he’s not going to win. Eventually his girlfriend Adrian spurs him to give it a shot.

As the two fighters prepare for the match, both prepare in exactly the same way, showing that at heart they are the same. The entrances, however, are very telling. When Rocky enters the fight, he’s very unassuming. He enters, flanked by his manager, signs a couple autographs, before stepping into the ring. Apollo, on the other hand is gaudy, and showy, as he enters dressed as George Washington in a mockery of the crossing of the Delaware. He then changes into a costume portraying himself as Uncle Sam, saying that he wants Rocky, and claiming he will go down in three rounds. Even the announcers are surprised by the showmanship of Creed, saying “I’ve never seen a fighter that concerned about his hair.”

So the fight starts. On the whole, Rocky gets pushed around, and beat up, though he gets some good hits. The third round comes and goes, and things remain largely the same, with Rocky getting punched around, but still getting some good hits on Apollo. As they go deeper and deeper into the fight, it appears to be much more equal blow for blow, and by the 15th round both men are on their last legs. The fight ends with both men still standing. Apollo grabs Rocky and says “There won’t be no rematch” signaling that he has been humbled by the fight, and Rocky says he doesn’t want a rematch. In the end, Rocky loses the fight, but it’s not really made a point, we never see Apollo being crowned the victor. Rather, we see Adrian fighting her way through the crowd, eventually reaching Rocky. The movie ends with the two kissing.

On a technical level, the movie was not particularly impressive. While the montage was absolutely brilliant, I didn’t think anyone’s acting was particularly spectacular, nor was the direction anything especially impressive. What I did like was the dialogue, and I thought Sylvester Stallone was well cast as his mumbling and garbled lines actually lend themselves to Rocky’s character. No, this film is more about ideas – the stark contrast between Rocky’s low class humility, and Apollo’s rich, capitalist hubris. Rocky is at its core what being an American is all about. Rocky is a foreigner – an Italian before an American – he’s poor, he’s humble, and most importantly, he’s normal. Both he and his girlfriend aren’t particularly attractive, and they both have hang-ups. When asked why he’s dating Adrian he says “We fit together, we fill gaps”. But the movie is at its core about a down-on-his-luck working class man being faced with an insurmountable opposition, and rising to the challenge, and, through hard work, training, and just plain guts, he rises to face the challenge. That Rocky loses is irrelevant. Rocky doesn’t need to win, he doesn’t fight to win, he fights to prove that “he ain’t no bum”, he fights to show that he shouldn’t be dismissed, and at the end of the movie, he accomplished this, and the movie accomplished this. The movie is nothing spectacular, but the ideas entailed in the movie are, and that’s why this movie is on the list.

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#18 Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1993)

"A star studded, but ultimately disappointing film"

Our final Dracula movie this week is the Francis Ford Coppola film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”. This is one of the more recent Dracula films, and the one I am most familiar with. While my reviews of Dracula and Nosferatu were my first screenings of those films, I have seen this particular film several times, the first of which being 5 years ago after I read the original novel. At first viewing, I rather liked the film, I was 14, and this movie was gory, erotic, and generally cool. Now, after having seen this film again, with perspective, and with a different sense of good and bad, I have different sentiments about this film.

The story in this film is the closest to the story of all of the movies here. The story begins with a prologue of sorts. It talks about where Dracula came from, how he was a Hungarian prince, who defends against the incursions of the Ottoman Turks. During the battle, his wife, his one love in the world, receives false information suggesting Dracula died in battle, and so, wracked with grief, she throws herself off a cliff. When Dracula finds out what happened, he forsakes god, and in the process, turns himself into a vampire. Cut to 1890s England. Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) is told by his boss to travel to Transylvania to close a deal with one Count Dracula, who has been buying up property around London. The rest you’ve heard three times now, and this film is essentially the same thing, just with more sexual moaning, more nudity, and more blood. The only other difference is Dracula is made more human, and there’s a love story between Mina and Dracula that plays a much bigger part. One thing I do like about the film is that, like the books, the film is told largely through diary entries, which I thought was a very cool effect.

I found the acting in this film to be rather spotty. On the one hand, Gary Oldman as Dracula is absolutely stupendous, one of the best Dracula performances ever. Keanu Reeves, on the other hand, is not so good. As always, Keanu Reeves is completely bland and uninteresting. Winona Ryder I found to be off and on. Sometimes she’s good, and other times she’s very campy. And Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing I found to be silly. I cringed every time I heard him say “Ja”. The shooting is absolutely stupendous. There are a lot of cool shots, and a lot of cool effects in this film: scenes such as Dracula climbing down the castle, and effects such as Dracula being green mist, or the shots with the old fashioned camera.

On the whole, I did not like this film. This is actually the first of the films on the list that I didn’t really like. That’s not to say the film is bad, I just didn’t find it good, especially compared to the other two Dracula movies. One thing that truly annoyed me about this film is the gratuitous nudity in the film. And don’t even get me started on the sexual moaning. This film definitely could pass as a porno, and when I’ve been watching a lot of movies that do these stories great without blood, violence, or nudity, it just feels excessive. Why is this film on the list then? I think it’s because of all of the big names in this film. Reeves, Ryder, Hopkins, and Oldman, added to by the biggest of all of them, Francis Ford Coppola, that legendary director. This, if anything, is the reason why, I feel at any rate, that this film is on the list.

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#17 Dracula (1931)

Although the connotations of the concept and name “vampire” have changed massively in the last decade, especially with the advent of the popular book (and film) series “Twilight”, when I was a kid it was rather different. Vampires were something to be feared, to me anyways, they were scary, horrifying even. And the image that came to mind when one thought of Vampires was that of Bela Lugosi’s Count Dracula; pale, regal, with a costume from the late 19th century, and piercing, striking eyes. This is the image of Dracula that has pervaded for what is now nearing on a century. It is a testament to the greatness of this film, and the great acting ability of Bela Lugosi.

This film, like Nosferatu, is quite true to the original novel. Unlike Nosferatu, however, this film features the actual character names. The story opens to a sequence that is rather similar to Hutter traveling to visit Orlok in Nosferatu. This time, Renfield is traveling to arrange a deal with Count Dracula. The whole sequence is rather spooky, and culminates in Dracula himself. Dracula talks to Renfield about buying the abandoned Carfax Abbey in London. After this is concluded, Dracula hypnotizes Renfield, and feasts on his blood.

The scene then cuts to an opera, where we are introduced to the main characters, Mina, Harker, and Lucy, accompanied by Dr. Seward. Dracula comes to the box, and the characters all become acquainted with one another. Later that night, Dracula visits Lucy and feasts on her blood, resulting the next day, in Lucy’s death after a series of failed transfusions. Meanwhile, Renfield has also returned to England, but has been institutionalized as his experience with Dracula has obviously driven him insane, and he rants endlessly about blood and life, primarily the lives of flies, spiders, and other arthropods. After befuddling the doctors, an expert is consulted, on Dr. Van Helsing, who, after interviewing Renfield, confesses a suspicion that a Vampire is to blame. A few nights later, Mina starts succumbing to the same illnesses Lucy showed. Van Helsing again lends his expertise, and through a series of stratagems, he proves to all that Count Dracula is a vampire. Despite all of his ensuing guiles after this dramatic reveal, Van Helsing and Harker eventually track Dracula to his lair in Carfax Abbey, and kill him while he sleeps, by driving a wooden steak through his heart.

The acting in this film is stupendous. Bela Lugosi is Dracula. He plays the role so well, and so true to the novel. He isn’t a monster, or grotesque, as described in Nosferatu, but a regal, suave, and smooth Count, who is quite capable of fooling and seducing just about everyone he meets. Bela’s accent, his delivery, and his gaze make this a truly stunning role. He isn’t the only great act in this film however. Renfield, played by Dwight Frye, also gives a spectacular performance. His portrayals first as a bumbling salesman put out of his element, and later as a deranged psychopath are equally compelling, and really add a lot to the film. Finally, Edward Van Sloan, who plays Van Helsing, also gives an excellent performance as the primary protagonist to Dracula’s antagonist. You feel yourself shouting “no!” when you see Bela Lugosi nearly lead him astray, only for him to flip the crucifix, and for you the viewer to release a sigh of relief.

The camerawork is also quite well done. The director Tod Browning has a lot of close ups, particularly on Bela’s Eyes, and on the little, insignificant insects that captured Renfield’s passion, and these are well done. Another great shot is the one of Renfield looking out of his cell door, and onto the field, where he sees Dracula standing, waiting. Another, equally great shot is the one at the end of the film, in which Dracula pushes Renfield down the stairs. These scenes are compelling, and you feel sorry for the deranged Renfield.

This film truly marks the start of the “monster genre” that dominated Hollywood and inspired viewers for another two decades, instigating other great monsters, such as Frankenstein, the Creature of the Black Lagoon, and the Wolf Man. I wanted to do a week of monster classics, featuring Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolf Man, but neither Frankenstein nor Wolf Man were available on Watch Instantly, and moreover, a Dracula week was just too tempting. But I digress. This film is on the list simply because of what it did for film, and for the horror genre. This film really popularized Vampires, and provided an archetype from which all other vampire films were based. It established a lot of vampire tropes. And seriously, when you think of Vampires, the first thought that pops into your head, I can guarantee you, is that of Bela Lugosi, the king of Vampires.

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#16 Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)

"A Key Work in the history of film"

It can be argued that there is no story or character more adapted and done in film than vampires, and Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. It has been done so much that we are going to be doing a week of Dracula, and even then there are more to go on the list. Our first film in this our first Dracula/Vampire week is Nosferatu: eine Syphonie des Grauens, a German film released in 1922. Nosferatu was a film I didn’t know very much about. To be honest, the only time I had ever heard of it before a year ago was on an episode of Spongebob. But then again, the combination of Dracula – I used to avoid horror films like the plague – and silent films, which I haven’t looked at seriously until very recently. However, looking at the film now, I really wish I had discovered these movies earlier.
The story of this film is funny. Funny in that it very closely resembles the novel written by Bram Stoker that it’s based on, but is just slightly different. This is because the film makers could not gain the rights to the book. Instead of taking place in London, the story takes place in a small village in Austria Hungary. The main character is Thomas Hutter, a young, ambitious real estate agent, who has recently been wedded to a woman Ellen. The real story begins when Hutter’s boss, Knock tells Hutter that one Count Orlok is interested in buying a house in town, and Knock sends Hutter to sell him the house across from his. So, Hutter sets out, and starts exxperiencing creepy stuff. Despite the warnings of the villagers he meets, he presses on, eventually reaching the castle. Hutter is eventually successfully sells the house to Orlok, but in the process discovers that Orlok (Dracula) is a nosferatu (vampire), and is hell-bent on taking Hutter’s (Harker‘s) wife (fiancé) for his own. Orlok incapacitates Hutter, and sets out to get at Ellen (Mina). Hutter eventually comes to his senses, and the story becomes a race between Orlok and Hutter to get home first. Hutter succeeds, but Orlok is fast on his heels. In the meantime, Knock has become the equivalent of Renfield in the book, and starts going crazy. When Orlok arrives, as in the book, he comes by boat, and ends up killing everyone on board. When the boat arrives, the townsfolk suspect plague, and so put the whole town on quarantine. When people start dying, the townsfolk blame the whole thing on Knock, and so start chasing him through the town. Ellen, in the meantime, starts doing research, and learns that the only way to defeat the nosferatu, is not by a steak through the heart, but by seducing him the entire night, and getting him caught in daylight. She does this, much to Hutter’s dismay, and the film ends with Orlok dead, and Ellen dying in Hutter’s arms.
As I said before with Metropolis, I love the acting in these silent films. The concept of emoting rather than dialogue is compelling and different enough for me to find it interesting. Hutter is quite good, and Ellen is absolutely gorgeous, always a must for these types of films. Naturally, the show stealer in this film is Orlok. Playing the count, he is quite good, but as the Nosferatu, he is stupendous. It really is one of those seminal roles, like Boris Karloff playing Frankenstein’s Monster, or Bela Lugosi playing Dracula a decade later. The camerawork in this film is equally good, it’s nearly a character of its own. There are some truly spectacular shots of the beautiful Carpathian mountains. The film also does a great job with shadows. One of my favorite scenes is Orlok closing in on Hutter, and the scene shows the shadows of the claws of the nosferatu enveloping him. Another cool thing the film does is differentiate between night and day. Naturally this film came out before the development of lighting and night shooting, so the film shoots everything during the day, and differentiates with different filters – a yellow one for day, and a blue one for night.
The only problem I have with this film, as I had with Metropolis, is the music. These silent films generally had live music that was performed live to the music, meaning there is no audio tracks in these films. Because of that, when these films are restored, a composer comes in and makes a new audio track for the film. Usually these tracks are atrociously bad, and often do not match with what’s going on in the film. For Nosferatu, this is particularly bad. It got so unbearable that at one point I actually did mute the sound because it was that bad. However, int eh face of the overall excellence of this film, the music is tolerable.
Dracula seems to be one of those stories that has captivated audiences since the story was first published in the 1880s. It is one of the most done – or possibly overdone – stories and genres in film. From Les Vampyrs to Twilight, vampires have been sparking the imaginations of humanity for generations. And this is why this film is on the list. It’s one of the first – and certainly the first feature length – vampire films to ever come out, and the first Dracula adaptation. Because of this, this film has come to be a seminal – archetypal – film, and has come to establish many of the tropes common in vampire films. It’s also notable for its special effects and costume work, not to mention the stupendous job of Max Schreck as Count Orlok. All of these things combine to make one of the greatest, and most monumental movies in film, a film that needs to be seen by any patron of film.

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#15 The Birds (1963)

"An interesting examination of the human psyche"

Our final movie of this our first of many Hitchcock weeks is The Birds. This movie is exceedingly notorious, and was, in fact, the only Hitchcock movie I knew of for the first, probably 14 years of my life. This movie is interesting in that it is nothing at all like the other Hitchcock movies of this week; the story is not at all complex, nothing is explained at the end, there are no big twists. The lack of twists in this movie can itself almost be considered a twist. Throughout the whole of the movie I was expecting a twist, expecting the crazy birds to be explained, but it never came. I was so surprised, I felt hollow inside because of it. But that’s the point. This movie isn’t about why or how, it’s about what. The film is really an exploration into what people do when a disaster sets in, how people respond to terror and mass hysteria, and in this realm, the movie is extraordinarily successful.
The film is about Melanie Daniels, a wealthy daughter of a newspaper magnate living in San Francisco. We first see her in a pet store, where she is picking up a bird, when she meets up with Mitch Brenner, a lawyer, who reveals that Melanie is quite the prankster. After their brusque meeting, Melanie takes a fancy to the man, and tries to find out where he lives, which turns out to be a sleepy little port town 60 miles up the coast called Bodega Bay. She follows him up there, and their courtship begins. During this period, however, weird things begin to happen, starting with a seagull attacking and injuring Melanie. Things get weirder and weirder as time goes on, resulting in the climax in which hordes of birds of many species start launching coordinated assaults on the people of Bodega Bay.
As can be expected in a Hitchcock film, the casting of this film is absolutely superb. Tippi Hedren, who plays Melanie, and Rod Taylor, who plays Mitch both do stupendous jobs. Mitch’s clingy mother, played by Jessica Tandy also gives a stupendous job. The shooting of this film is equally stupendous as always. There are so many great shots in this film, too many to count, and too many to list off. One of the most striking, however, is the first character who gets killed by the Birds. We are shown a man sitting down, with both of his eyes pecked out. The film then cuts to a closer look at him, then again to an even closer look at his eyes. It’s a very striking scene, and really sends a message to the viewers that these birds are dangerous. Another great scene is the scene from above showing the town from the perspective of the birds. Another striking part of this film is the sound. There is nearly no music in the film at all – the only music being a short number by the schoolchildren. This really gives a sense of isolation and almost paranoia. The film also does a great job with sound direction. It makes great use of the sounds of bird calls and the sound of flapping wings to really create tension and fear.
What this film does really well, however is the emphasis on the psychological aspect of the film. The truly key scene of the film is the Diner scene, just after the first major attack, and before the start of mass panic. You have Melanie telling people about the attack, and a bird expert telling people there is no danger. Slowly, but surely the people start to realize the danger, and start panicking. Then the attack comes, and after 10 minutes of action, we are returned to the diner, where we see everyone crying, the selfsame bird expert is cowering in the corner. Another great aspect of this film is the exposition. The film does a great job of building momentum. The action doesn’t begin until 40 minutes into the film, and those first 40 minutes are a story in of itself, which really gives you a chance to get to know and like all of the characters, giving the rest of the film meaning.
This is truly a great film. Although the birds are cheesy, and the action scenes are all very silly and cheesy, and the effects are quite stupid, the film is effective. The horror is there, the film is frightening. This film is on the list for a number of reasons. Firstly for it’s cultural impact. As I said before, this was the only Hitchcock film I knew of before I saw North by Northwest in High School. This film, not Vertigo, not Psycho, but this one. Second, the film is on the list for its investigation into how people respond to paranoia and hysteria. Thirdly, this film is on the list for Hitchcock, and his filmmaking ability. This movie took something as innocent as a bird, and created a terrifying monster. This film is a testament to the power and skill Hitchcock has in creating tension and horror. This man is truly the master of thrills.

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