When I set out to do this project, I knew that I was offering myself up to the trolls and smartasses of the world. That promising to take every single one of the first 110 suggestions I was offered carried with it the very real risk of getting taken advantage of and being made to consume/experience things I hate (horror movies) or that would consume an inordinate amount of time or energy/be impossible (African Safari).
me + this project getting ready for the direct and very foreseeable consequences of my actions.
But no matter how much we prepare, it’s always those we least expect. My perfect, wonderful, nicest guy you could ever hope to have in your corner, would absolutely never even CONSIDER the act of ‘trolling’ friend Ben recommended that I watch the entirety of the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition). Now, I 1000% believe that this rec was made from a genuine place because I know for a fact that Ben has done this himself. Ben has also mathematically predicted the Oscars better than Nate Silver and written a book! In his recommendation (you can add yours here!!) he said that it’s the most fun he’s ever had doing an entertainment challenge before lovingly caveating that he knows 100 is too much to consume in a year and maybe I could try top 10 or top 25. But I think I am going to watch all the AFI Top 100 movies and here is why: because I am genuinely interested in approaching these movies and this list in the context of 2020.
The AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition) is a very predictable, very male list. It’s topped by Citizen Kane followed closely by The Godfather and speckled with Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, and Marlon Brando all the way down. It’s punctuated by the Polanskis, Allens, Tarentinos and other ‘complicated figures’ of our modern artistic reckoning (the name we’ve decided on for the collective agreement that adept cinematography and pith are not acceptable measures of morality) as well as the Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Diane Keaton, and Meryl Streep vehicles that shaped the role of women in modern film.
In 2007 when this list was released (updated to, among other things, remove “The Birth of a Nation”) I was 14 years old. Thirteen years (and Peele, DuVernay, Heller, Wang, Cho, Jenkins, Moreno, + Joon-ho) later feels like watching these movies in a different world. A world where the influence of these films and their makers is significant but no longer singular.
I think things can be flawed and important at the same time. I think acknowledging the place of a work in history is not the same thing as declaring its right to remain on a pedestal for all time. Also as a white girl who looks forward to Pumpkin Spice season and Apple Picking every year, I think it should be okay for people to like things and think they are the best ever - even if it is a very popular thing to think.
All that said…
I thought Raiders of the Lost Ark was fine.
I take no issue with the *quality* of the movie. In fact, my favorite part was watching it with my film-degree having husband while he pointed out moments of directorial brilliance and visual storytelling tactics. I know that’s a cliche of obnoxious film bro culture, but we have a deal where he gets to teach me about visual storytelling+general film stuff and I get to make him pause the TV so I can go on very elaborate rants about good, cool acting (I did not do this during Raiders…).
As a lifelong theatre kid, I’m still learning about the power of film to perfectly direct the audience eye and the very specific thinking/logistics that go into it. A college professor once told me that “as soon as the audience remembers that a show has a director, the director has failed” which I think is super cool. Of course, it’s less applicable to students of directing or theatre/film who go in with a more acute knowledge of how things happen and what requires choices. But watching a Spielberg movie with a lifelong student of film helped me notice the ways I wasn’t noticing the work of a superior director.
For me, the movie was at its most enjoyable when I was having elements of visual storytelling explained to me - mostly because I found the rest of the storytelling to walk the line between fun, fine, and actively annoying. I do enjoy that the villains are the Nazis because it makes it very easy to hate every single one of them and usually I find it very difficult to stomach gratuitous death of ‘anonymous’ people. I do not, generally, enjoy Marion who is cool as the bartender character and then immediately reduced to semi-assertive when Indiana returns (she is mad because he canonically statutory raped her when she was 15…women, amirite) and then PROMPTLY becomes a screaming damsel in distress shouting ‘INDYYYYYYY’ every time she gets in trouble even though the vowel on Indianaaaaaaaa would be MUCH more satisfying IMHO.
As a general fan of humor, I did get quite a kick out of the absolutely shameless ways that the movie got Marion to change clothes - once as she attempted to seduce/inebriate her Nazi captor (who pulled “will you put on this dress for me my pet” weirdness) then in the snake pit when that same long dress gets torn off below the knees with Elizabeth Warren-like* precision (*control F scissors). Then finally when they are on the boat and Indy presents her with a FUCKING SLIP that she wears for the duration of the film. That dress absolutely does not have enough boob support and would 100% require spanx so before there was Bryce Dallas Howard feeling dinosaurs in high heels, there was GD Marion in an actual undergarment.
this is a slip
Yes the tightness of presentation and payoff was there. Yes the action scenes were cool and Harrison Ford is a babe. Yes I understand he paves the way for all the Robert Langdons and other guilty pleasure cryptographers that follow him (whom I ADORE btw). But its undeniably hard to separate the cool snake scene and blowin’ up Nazis from Prof. Han Solo kissing a tied up lady who is also his mentor’s daughter who is apparently very tough and worldly but forgets this entirely when he is around.
I don’t like being a killjoy. I don’t actively LOOK for ways to be a killjoy. But shit like that makes me less interested in whatever story is being told - and as seamless as the tracking shots and quick visual hints and setup and payoff are, hastily and transparently drawn female characters who exist more as devices than people… they remind me that there’s a director.
On to the next!!
Currently Reading: Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Currently Watching: Laguna Beach Season 1
Currently Listening to: Daughters of DC Podcast (not a rec for me a rec FROM me to you!)
Currently Laughing at: These dick jokes I wrote with my friends! Shameless plug.
Currently spending money on: Donations to this writing residency for ladies!!!! They’re so close to their goal!!!
Check out the full list here.
Rec me stuff here.
Love you all so much!!
TKP