On my Laptop table, below
my mouse, I have a notebook on which at any time you will always find few
lists. Right now, I have lists of Classics, Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman
movies. Have you ever followed someone? I don’t mean following someone
physically. I meant following an actor or actress or director? In my case, this
remains single most prolific source of adding films into my various queues and
these lists on that notebook help me do just that
It all started with Julia
Roberts after watching Pretty
Woman(1990) and My
Best Friend’s Wedding(1997) and she still remains to be one of my
favorite actresses. Since then I have done this for many actresses like Amy
Adams after Doubt(2008)(I
have watched all of her last 10 films except Moonlight Serenade(2009)),
Rachel McAdams after State of
Play(2009), Audrey Hepburn after Roman Holiday(1953)(I am
simply in awe of her beauty. Give me a film with Audrey Hepburn and I will
watch it regardless of everything else) and I have been doing the same recently
with Ingrid Bergman after Casablanca(1942)
and Notorious(1946).
Audrey Tautou has been on my radar since Amelie(2001) and Priceless(2006). It has
been a slow progress about it since I find it little difficult to get hold of
her films with subtitles. Netflix is turning out to be good source on this
front lately.
Funny thing is sometimes
you don’t follow someone intentionally but then one day you realize that is
exactly what you were doing. It happened in case of Christopher Nolan, though
having just 10 films (I am not sure JUST is a proper word here if you know
these 10 films. So don’t take it too literally) under his resume helped a lot.
But it struck me the most for Sidney Lumet. After his recent death, I read a
lot about him and how great a director he was. Since I didn’t know much about
him, I once checked him out on IMDb just out of curiosity. I was amazed that I
have seen like 8 of his films and I didn’t even know it’s Him. I mean I don’t know
how did I not know that he directed 12 Angry Men(1957), Dog Day Afternoon(1975), Network(1976) and The Verdict(1982) and many
more? I was just naïve I guess.
However, if you want to
really start following someone now, it really makes much more sense to follow a
Director than performer. As many critics say and I agree that an actor or an
actress is much more prone to do a bad movie than director. My experience with
Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Billy Wilder suggests the same (I hope to
add Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman to this list pretty soon). Also, even
without knowing it, you are also following an actor or actress as well. Like,
if you are going after Scorsese, you are also watching a lot of De Niro films
and DiCaprio recently or you are getting a lot of Jack Lemmon if you have seen
Billy Wilder a lot.
You probably have noticed
that I have never followed an actor. In my defense, I will again say that I did
not do this intentionally. And as I said earlier, I was getting enough of Tom
Hanks and Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio through their directors.
However, I promise to undo this very soon by making my own list for Humphrey
Bogart and Jimmy Stewart as soon as I have something in my pocket for
Hitchcocks and Bergmans.
I haven't seen many Lumet films (well actually only 12 Angry Men), but I read one interview he gave where he mentioned that his style was to have no style. His style is to get out of the way of the viewer. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/movies/21lim.html That's probably one of the reasons it is difficult to recognize that it was his film.
ReplyDelete