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If I Had a Sight & Sound Film Ballot: Matt Maul’s Top 10 Films of All Time

In compiling my Top 10 film list, I tried to avoid obvious choices based on general consensus.

If I Had a Sight & Sound Film Ballot: Matt Maul's Top 10 Films of All Time
Photo: Miramax
Editor’s Note: In light of Sight & Sound’s film poll, which, every decade, queries critics and directors the world over before arriving at a communal Top 10 list, we polled our own writers, who didn’t partake in the project, but have bold, discerning, and provocative lists to share.

In compiling my Top 10 film list, I tried to avoid obvious choices based on general consensus. Movies like Modern Times, It’s a Wonderful Life, and The Searchers are great, and I respect them for what they are, but I almost never stop what I’m doing to watch them. The list below includes 10 films I must make a pilgrimage to at least once a year.


The Candidate

10. The Candidate (Michael Ritchie, 1972)

Films about political campaigns and governance generally don’t do much for me. They are often melodramas that just clumsily use the world of politics as a backdrop, and don’t give the audience any more insight into political environments than Star Wars provides insight into how aerospace technology works. A fine film, Franklin J. Schaffner’s The Best Man does attempt to show the proverbial sausage being made, but it hedges its bets by not naming a specific party, and ultimately feels watered down by obviously trying to be too even-handed. Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate follows a man running for office, Robert Redford’s Bill McKay, who expresses a clear progressive agenda, but without delivering any condescending, Aaron Sorkin-type monologues. I’m a right-of-center person, but every time I see this film, I’m tempted to go out and vote not only once, but twice, for Bill McKay.


Nineteen Eighty-Four

9. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Michael Radford, 1984)

Not that it really mattered, but, as claimed in the closing credits, Michael Radford’s extremely faithful and definitive version of Nineteen Eighty-Four was shot during the same time frame and in the exact locations as envisioned by George Orwell. Nineteen Eighty-Four perfectly captures the dark tone and texture of Orwell’s novel. As opposed to earlier attempts in the 1950s, Radford faced a different challenge, in that the real world of 1984 didn’t resemble Orwell’s version. The temptation might have been to update the material and sidestep the discrepancies (as a rumored Francis Ford Coppola version was supposedly going to do), but luckily, Radford assumed that the audience could make the mental leap and accept that the world didn’t turn out as it did in the book. Highlighting Nineteen Eighty-Four are the Party propaganda pieces created for the film, such as the “Two Minutes Hate” opening. They are themselves polished films within a film, clearly inspired by works such as Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will.


Marooned

8. Marooned (John Sturges, 1969)

A gem that I suspect few people have seen, Marooned follows a three-man NASA crew stranded in orbit when the retro rockets on their Apollo-style craft fail to fire. With no foreseeable solution to the problem, and the capsule’s oxygen running out, NASA flight director Charles Keith (Gregory Peck) makes a coldly calculated decision to not launch a foolhardy rescue attempt. The president, with his own PR concerns about the future of the space program, vetoes Keith’s decision and orders him to do something. Implausibility aside, the film, directed by John Sturges, gets most of the technical stuff right, and I found myself pulled into Sturges’s version of space flight just as strongly as Kubrick’s. In Sturges’s hands, Marooned has a more mature sensibility than Apollo 13. There’s an incredible scene in which Peck, communicating with the stranded ship on a secure line, indirectly informs the crew that there isn’t enough oxygen left in the capsule to sustain three men until the rescue ship arrives. However, there is enough for two (hint, hint).


Reservoir Dogs

7. Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992)

I still prefer Quentin Tarantino’s first gore fest over Pulp Fiction. Both turn the film noir genre on its ear and redefine how to tell a story, but Pulp Fiction, like the name suggests, isn’t really about anything. Conversely, while it may appear morally ambiguous on the surface, Reservoir Dogs is anything but. Harvey Keitel’s Mr. White deceives himself into thinking that he’s different (read: better) than Michael Madsen’s Mr. Blonde. Mr. White feels superior because he’s careful about how he dishes out his evil, but he and Mr. Blonde are basically two sides of the same coin (they both have a penchant for Zippo lighters and cutting off people’s appendages). I’d argue that Mr. White’s feelings of betrayal at the end are derived from the discovery that society draws sharper lines on morality than he thought, and it doesn’t give anyone credit for being only half-bad.

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Inglourious Basterds

6. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

If The Dirty Dozen and The Bad and the Beautiful had a child, it would be Inglourious Basterds. Quentin Tarantino’s World War II yarn is certainly a celebration of film, but he seems critical of filmmakers. At the very least, Tarantino takes aim at the “business” of mainstream moviemaking. Goebbels himself is presented as a major movie mogul. Sure, the main protagonist, Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), loves movies and actually makes one, but at the end, she willingly burns down a movie house using reels of film for kindling. She’s doing so for herself ,not the glory. The same could be said for one of my all-time favorite characters, Brad Pitt’s Aldo Raine. He carves a swastika on the head of a prize captured Nazi, knowing full well he’s going to get chewed out for it. But he doesn’t care if others appreciate his “masterpiece.” Like Tarantino, he’s doing his art for himself.


Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

5. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)

Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe is a good movie that’s gotten its due props recently, thanks to a (dreadful) televised-play version in the early Aughts and a steady rotation on TCM. But it clearly suffered big time by being released second to the masterpiece that is Dr. Strangelove. The ultimate irony is that while Dr. Strangelove is a comedy, in Stanley Kubrick’s hands it feels more realistic than the similarly Cold War-themed Fail-Safe. Sure, the War Room in Dr. Strangelove is a tad surreal. But, for the most part, Dr. Strangelove just seems more accurate, less dated, and less self-righteous when viewed today, making the danger that much more acute. And the last line from Dr. Strangelove, “Mein Furher, I can valk,” totally destroys Fail-Safe’s “I’m the matador.”


Citizen Kane

4. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

I hate to be predictable, as Orson Welles’s directorial debut ends up on a lot of “best” lists, but when I was in my early teens, Citizen Kane was the film that showed me that the way a movie tells its story can be just as interesting as the story itself. By the 10-minute mark, the fake newsreel—which predated today’s “found footage” trend by fifty years—and the expressionistically-lit screening room scene marked an epiphany for me.


The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

3. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent, 1974)

If you can get past the laughable fashion disasters and the casual approach to racism and sexism that were ubiquitous to the decade, 1974’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, a crime thriller about the hijacking of a New York subway train, is worth the trip. Joseph Sargent’s restrained effort has it all over Tony Scott’s convoluted 2009 version. One of the story’s central characters is urban decay, with politics, corruption, bureaucracy, apathy, and greed all complicating things for both the good and bad guys. And unlike the typical dramatic depictions of police officers, these transit cops aren’t excited about the prospect of running around and kicking down doors. Walter Matthau’s character isn’t quite world-weary, but he’s close, and his partner, played by Jerry Stiller (George Costanza’s dad!), seems like he’d rather drink coffee, read his newspaper, and be left alone. What’s more (though it won’t be divulged here to avoid spoilers), this film boasts the greatest final line of any movie!

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The Day of the Jackal

2. The Day of the Jackal (Fred Zinnemann, 1973)

My pick for number two is Fred Zinnemann’s faithful film adaption of Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel, The Day of the Jackal. Set in 1961, the fictional plot follows a French terrorist group who zealously plan to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle. After several failures, which are blamed on internal leaks, the group hires an English outsider code-named “The Jackal.” Perfectly paced and still relevant today, the film juxtaposes the actions of single-minded fanatics against benignly indifferent bureaucrats. Because we know the real de Gaulle wasn’t killed by terrorists, I’m not divulging anything by saying that the bureaucrats win. But, unlike the horrid remake, the film has tension that remains palpable.


The Birds

1. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

When pressed to pick my favorite movie of all time, I invariably say Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. The problem with the talk of a remake is that whoever tackles it will probably literally make it about birds. After the austere production values of Psycho, I’m sure Hitchcock wanted to play with all the latest cinematic toys of the day, but I think he also set out to make interesting observations about humankind. For instance, in the restaurant, just before a bird attack, there are three symbolic personifications of civilization. There’s religion (the old drunk at the end of the bar spouting Bible verses), science (the ornithologist lady with the beret and an air of superiority), and commerce (the black-suited businessman who’s got his own problems and can’t be bothered). The three discuss their theories as to why birds have suddenly gone on the warpath, but none of them really have a clue. Interestingly, the old drunk comes the closest when he says “it’s the end of the world.” But people stopped taking him seriously a long time ago.

This article was originally published on The House Next Door.

Matt Maul

Matt Maul is a bitter middle-aged man who blogs random, nonsensical, diatribes that rail against pop-culture, politics, and sports (how typical) over at Maul of America.

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