What exactly does it mean when you stumble upon a movie that changes your life? One critic defined it as the ultimate in perspective shift, something that really comes along and shakes the foundations of how you view the world.
Check out this list of 5 that I've compiled here, and see why these ones are compulsively viewable but still insanely powerful at the same time.
#5: A Template for Spectacle -- Triumph of the Will.
Leni Riefenstahl's chilling tribute to Hitler and the Nazi party will change the way you think about art that glorifies war and violence. When you realize that great film spectacle can be put into the service of something so terrible as Nazism, it changes the way you look at all heavily aestheticized works.
#4: De Sica's Genius on Display in Bicycle Thieves.
Ultra-simple -- a man gets a bike, and a job, when Rome is very poor after the second world war. He then loses the bike, and tries to steal another one so he can keep the job. There isn't much else to the plot, but it contains a whole world.
#3: Polanski Figures Out Corruption in Chinatown.
If you've been put off by a few select films from the'40s because the plots are so convoluted or you don't happen to be a huge Bogart fan, check out this one instead, which has the perfect spirit of the 70s but happens to be set way back.
#2: Vertigo.
A wonderful thriller that also happens to be all about falling in love, idealizing women (or men), wanting other people to conform to our expectations, and an examination of the director's role in shaping how a movie is made. No other film is so good both on its surface and in its multiple layers of meaning at the same time.
#1: The Godfather.
You can almost never get tired of this film, it is that good on first go -- nearly every scene is legendarily filmed, acted, and executed, and then the fact that it happens to convey some grand and great things about America is almost like a bonus, until that becomes the reason you return to it 50 times.
Check out this list of 5 that I've compiled here, and see why these ones are compulsively viewable but still insanely powerful at the same time.
#5: A Template for Spectacle -- Triumph of the Will.
Leni Riefenstahl's chilling tribute to Hitler and the Nazi party will change the way you think about art that glorifies war and violence. When you realize that great film spectacle can be put into the service of something so terrible as Nazism, it changes the way you look at all heavily aestheticized works.
#4: De Sica's Genius on Display in Bicycle Thieves.
Ultra-simple -- a man gets a bike, and a job, when Rome is very poor after the second world war. He then loses the bike, and tries to steal another one so he can keep the job. There isn't much else to the plot, but it contains a whole world.
#3: Polanski Figures Out Corruption in Chinatown.
If you've been put off by a few select films from the'40s because the plots are so convoluted or you don't happen to be a huge Bogart fan, check out this one instead, which has the perfect spirit of the 70s but happens to be set way back.
#2: Vertigo.
A wonderful thriller that also happens to be all about falling in love, idealizing women (or men), wanting other people to conform to our expectations, and an examination of the director's role in shaping how a movie is made. No other film is so good both on its surface and in its multiple layers of meaning at the same time.
#1: The Godfather.
You can almost never get tired of this film, it is that good on first go -- nearly every scene is legendarily filmed, acted, and executed, and then the fact that it happens to convey some grand and great things about America is almost like a bonus, until that becomes the reason you return to it 50 times.
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