Well, it is late and I am on Christmas break, just sitting in my basement on the couch. I am listening to Cloud Cult (one of my new obsessions) and am now writing online (an old one). I have picked up this blog again in order to renew an old challenge that I once made to myself, that I would write at least one thing every single day. What that one thing was, I never would specify, although for the past five years, I have mostly written film scripts or movie reviews (or lists). For almost three years I remained resolved to the challenge of daily writing, and then, earlier in 2009, I stopped. I'm not sure what stopped me, but my general amount of writing diminished greatly.
So, here on Christmas break seemed like the perfect time to start typing again. I've had this old blog for ages, but never once actually brought myself to put an entry into it. I guess I always categorized writing into one of two places: either it was for my friends or for me, and that dictated whether it went on Facebook or onto a pad of paper next to my bed. Well, as a way of motivating my thoughts out of my head (something that becomes harder and, I will admit, less enjoyable as time passes), I decided it was high time I got an actual blog. So here it is.
A few thoughts before I shove off for the evening. I am actually, at the moment, killing time that could probably be better spent elsewhere. I have in my room DVDs of Wings of Desire and Laura, two films that have been on my radar for quite some time, that I intentionally sought to view over break. However, I made the mistake (that I often make) of renting about nine or ten movies all at once. The problem with that strategy (and it certainly isn't that it is too many movies. My ability to consume movies, even with my inability to focus on anything for more than ten minutes, is pretty much legendary. Those who know me might recall my stories of watching three movies a day almost my entire first semester of my Freshman year) is that, when you rent ten anticipated movies, the odds are that at least one of them is going to absolutely blow your mind. I am not the kind of person who just watches a movie once. When I like a film, I will watch it again almost immediately. I will then give it a day, show it to a friend, then watch it with the audio commentary, and then watch it again to see what the audio commentary added to the experience.
Like clockwork, that very thing happened to me again. As a matter of fact, it happened twice, and on the first two movies I saw. The movies were Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo and Jaques Tourneur's Out of the Past. The former film is an established classic (often cited as one of the favorite films of people as prominent as Quentin Tarantino). The second film is more of a side classic. It comes from a filmmaker whose work I had only seen a little bit of (Tourner's Cat People is a delightfully pulpy (yet savagely intelligent) sub-classic, and I've yet to see any of his other horror stuff with Lewton, although it all sits atop my Netflix queue). While Rio Bravo shook me to my core (it is one of the most BA films I have ever seen, boasting career-best performances from both John Wayne and Dean Martin), it was Out of the Past that surprised me the most.
Out of the Past simply was one of the most entertaining films I have ever seen. I have always called myself a lover of film noir. However, it took Out of the Past to convince me that I really wasn't; at least, not until I had seen this film. Once I saw Out of the Past, I realized that I had held reservations about the entire noir genre. I realized its potential, but had always felt it fell just short of meeting it. As much as I love The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, and The Third Man, none of those staples of the noir canon ever really made their way into my heart. Maybe it was an out of place line delivery by Bogart. Maybe it was that the blacks weren't black enough. Maybe the witty dialog just didn't sizzle at all times like I wanted it too. Maybe the femme fatales were just a tad too predictable, or the villains seemed just a bit too dumb. Nothing ever ruined the films for me. I consider them all classics, but never felt I saw a definitive example that I could call my own (prior to this week, my favorite noir was Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, which excludes almost all the elements I just mentioned). Then I saw Out of the Past. I rarely allow myself to put a movie on my favorite films list after one viewing, but so shaken was I by Out of the Past that I had to find some way to justify telling people about it immediately.
And so, I first took to rewatching it immediately after I saw it the first time. Not quite immediately, I suppose. I tried watching my first Bunuel (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie). I made it through the film (which was funny at times, but I've never been able to get much into French class comedies, with the exception of Rules of the Game). However, the entire time I was thinking about Out of the Past. Quoting its brilliant dialog in my head. Seeing Robert Mitchum deliver lines from the archetype he was born to play (or, more accurately, the archetype that was invented so he could play it). And so, I watched it again. And I loved it even more. Outside of the entertainment value of the film (which was incredible. I ranked it as just a bit more fun than The Empire Strikes Back), the thematic depth the script carried was amazing. I almost immediately recalled a quote I once heard about Chinatown, about how it took a formula and made it a story. Out of the Past did the same thing, and reminded me why I loved movies (it was the first film I finished alone in one sitting since this last summer).
Then, the next day, I watched it again with my cousin. I have now watched the film 6 times, and felt justified in rewriting my top films list to include it. I don't know why, but I have always felt a desire to rank things. It is just the way my mind works. I enjoy the process of recalling all the films I love, and weighing in on their value. Of course, I see no value in it for others (except maybe as a means by which to judge me), but people love lists, and so I went on my favorite movies spot on Facebook (I did a blog about it just a few months ago, and I didn't want to beat a dead horse on the topic). However, seeing as how this is my first blog, I will post the list here for any stragglers to read.
1. Sherlock Jr.
2. The Passion of Joan of Arc
3. The Lord of the Rings
4. Rear Window
5. Out of the Past
6. The Empire Strikes Back
7. Lawrence of Arabia
8. No Country for Old Men
9. The General
10. Vertigo
11. Make Way for Tomorrow
12. M
13. Vampyr
14. Le Circle Rouge
15. The 400 Blows
16. Rio Bravo
17. The 39 Steps
18. Nosferatu
19. The Seventh Seal
20. His Girl Friday
21. The Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn
22. Casablanca
23. Army of Shadows
24. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
25. Night of the Hunter
26. Ikiru
27. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
28. City Lights
29. Patton
30. Wall-E
31. Tokyo Story
32. The Hudsucker Proxy
33. Rififi
34. Shadow of a Doubt
35. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
36. Toy Story
37. Blade Runner
38. White Heat
39. Faust
40. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
41. Metropolis
42. Bridge on the River Kwai
43. Umberto D
44. Rules of the Game
45. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
46. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
47. Steamboat Bill Jr.
48. 2001: A Space Odyssey
49. Its a Wonderful Life
50. The Bicycle Thief
Well, that's about it. I will try to keep the blog from being completely dominated by film talk (as I don't know a single one of my friends who enjoys ranting [and raving madly at the top of their lungs from the top of buildings] about the art of film as much as I do). I know that I can bore quite easily. So I will quit while I'm ahead (or, at least not as behind as I would be if I expounded as much as I want to). One last note, the name on the top of this blog (The Last Laugh) is so because of a movie that was supposed to be on this list. However, at the last second I realized that I had forgotten to put Blade Runner on there. The last correction made it so that the title of the blog was in no way meaningful (as The Last Laugh was my fiftieth favorite film). Therefore, I will quickly make a plug for what supposedly is my 51st favorite film of all time, The Last Laugh. It's an excellent film from one of my all time favorite filmmakers (F.W. Murnau, whose Nosferatu, Faust, and Sunrise make him one of the most represented filmmakers on the list). Anyone looking into silent film would be smart to begin with Murnau (alongside his peer, Fritz Lang, and with a good helping of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton). But I digress.... seriously. Hope you keep reading.
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