REMINISCENCES OF A JOURNEY THROUGH
CINEMA:
24FPS CONTRIBUTORS GIVE THEIR
PERSPECTIVES ON 2001
"Without the benefit of much retrospect, I'm inclined to think that 2001
was a great year for movies. By the end of it, I felt like I knew what it was
like to be a filmgoer in the 70's, and see Chinatown, The Godfather Part Two,
Celine and Julie Go Boating, and The Conversation, all in the
space of the same twelve months."
--Max Scheinin
"2001 was also the year New Yorkers caught up with Arnaud Desplechin's
metacinematic Esther Kahn at the Walter Reade's spring French film
series, and the year that Tsai Ming-Liang's deliberate, inexorable The River
received a theatrical run. If Breillat's formal courage and command [in Fat
Girl] now begin to recall Hitchcock, and Desplechin recapitulates
Rossellini's commitment to truth over fact, then Tsai evokes nothing so much as
the ghost of Murnau paying a visit to the modern cinema. 2001 was just fine for
me, thanks."
--Dan Sallitt
"Underrated gems: Vanilla Sky, Ghosts of Mars, Wet Hot
American Summer, Hannibal, Donnie Darko."
--Peter Sobczynski
"Some of the holy moments of my filmgoing in 2001 (and no the
undisciplined rambling mess called Waking Life is not among them): In one
month, seeing nine of Eric Rohmer's films in a theater for the first time-and
then having the 80-year-old master's latest pop my eyes out ... The opening
montages in Amélie and Ali ... Harvard Law School gets a video
application from a prospective student ... The showdown fight ("cut me, cut
me") in Zoolander ... The closing credits in Eloge de l'amour,
meaning this piece of merde is finally over."
--Victor Morton
"This year, there were plenty of films I feel are overrated, yet toward
which I still feel no animosity but instead much admiration: Waking Life,
The Man Who Wasn't There, Time Out, even The Lord of the Rings.
Not to mention films from 2000 that got releases this year: Mysterious Object
at Noon, Under the Sand, The Circle."
--Zach Campbell
"Made for the Highlight Reel (Where the Parts Edge Out the Sum): Ali,
Pootie Tang, The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein, Time and Tide
(2000)."
--Paul Fileri
"The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided that A
Beautiful Mind, a film that exemplifies mediocrity, was the greatest of them
all. This was no surprise. But watching this strangely saddening gala, and being
swept up by the racial opening-of-doors hype, I suddenly realized what a wreck
our great nation is in. It's not a new or immediately horrifying circumstance.
The fact is that black actors are treated like black actors and white actors are
just actors. And when Denzel Washington on the Sidney Poitier clip
whipped out the 'whether you're black or white' staple of politically correct
speech, I listened intently for the other colors, for further correctness: red,
yellow, brown... But, alas, not only is Hollywood slightly blind to minorities,
but America in general thinks that non-black minorities don't exist, or that
there are maybe one or two of them that snuck past the border."
--Andrew Chan
"It seems as if Spielberg's entire career had been leading up to A.I.
Artificial Intelligence. He was, of course, working in the genre with which
he is most comfortable-the fairy tale/fantasy-but then, unexpectedly, imbued his
material with the most. primal feelings imaginable. He transformed what had
become over the centuries essentially a benign form of fiction and returned it
to its dark, fearful roots. And, resultingly, A.I. was far more
"adult" than Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List. A
true revelation."
--Damien Bona
"Ginger Snaps: The year's most miraculous film, a riveting
werewolf film that doesn't rely on ancient genre conceits but comes infused with
a new-fashioned grotesque bio-feminism. This might seem like abjection and male
fear of the female reproductive system if the screenwriter wasn't a woman, and
if it didn't provide one of the greatest horror heroine roles for Emily Perkins,
in a role which makes forces her to play almost every emotion known to man, and
play out a tender scene with a hunk of animatronics. If nothing else, it's
unique as the only film I've ever come across that might deserve its R-rating
for "Scenes of explicit menstruation." The worst news is that it was
successful enough that there are sequels in the work, sequels to a rare modern
horror film that doesn't contain a blatant sequel setup."
--Murray Leeder
"Certainly September 11 made us see certain films in an immediately
different context ... the great Black Hawk Down, for example (my
nomination for worst review of the year is Elvis Mitchell's piece on that film).
But that can't last-it never does. Black Hawk Down, Collateral Damage
(you can toss in 2002's We Were Soldiers) will eventually be viewed on
their merits and demerits by audiences for whom September 11 is no more resonant
a date than December 7 is now for people under the age of 50. I'm confident Hawk
will outlive the snide radical chic reviewers. Some of the critical defenses and
attacks of movies will seem far more dated than the movies themselves. Ten years
from now, nobody will remember the booking patterns, and claims that In the
Bedroom and Memento (no ... really) reflected a thirst for
vigilantism and a contempt for (international) law will be laughed off the stage
in a manner only our presentism prevents us from doing now. Of course, Roger
Ebert's review of Zoolander was laughable the day it ran, 'but,' to quote
the late great Billy Wilder's Irma la Douce ... 'that's another
story.'"
--Victor Morton
"The two best older films I saw for the first time in 2001 were Andre De
Toth's corrosive meditation on the brutality of human nature, Day of the
Outlaw, and Nicholas Ray's beautiful meditation on the potential of human
redemption, On Dangerous Ground. Coincidentally, they both starred the
great Robert Ryan."
--Damien Bona
"A few minutes before the end of Fat Girl, I was thinking, 'This
film didn't quite come together - too bad.' Ten minutes after Catherine
Breillat's stunning queen-sacrifice ending, I decided: 'It's a masterpiece!' I
can't think of many experiments in cinematic style that have succeeded this
well."
--Dan Sallitt
"For me, the biggest change in heart involved an almost complete
180-degree turn on the films of Steven Spielberg. I had been an opponent (or, at
best, a mild admirer) of his work until I saw A.I. in the summer. What
could it mean, for this bizarre oedipal nightmare-fantasy directed by commercial
cinema's poster child to move me and challenge me more deeply than even the new
work by Tsai, Tarr, and Rivette? It was a humbling experience, but a welcome
one, and I came to change my mind about a lot of what Spielberg has done and
continues to do-without, of course, turning him into an inhuman idol, incapable
of making mistakes. His greatest films (The Sugarland Express, Always,
A.I.) stand alongside the best films of any other homegrown Hollywood
artist, and even many of his minor works (Hook, Jurassic Park, Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom) reveal a sensitive and assured willingness to
connect political-ethical concerns to contemplation of popular culture."
--Zach Campbell
"Most Overpraised: The Lady and the Duke, The Piano Teacher,
Gosford Park, La Ciénaga, No Man's Land, Memento
(2000), Sexy Beast (2000)"
--Paul Fileri
"Has nobody remarked on the similarity between Mulholland Drive
and Eyes Wide Shut? Both are dream explorations of a major American city,
with themes involving sex, violence, fame and class. Both are genres pastiches;
both sport stunning centerpieces where the characters witness bizarre
ritualistic behaviour. Both need to be decoded, like Joyce, and are well worth
the effort. And together, they represent perhaps the best American films of the
past five years."
--Murray Leeder