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| Announcing Trevanian's latest novel The Crazyladies of Pearl Street published 4 June 2005 Crown publishers is also re-issuing the first five of Trevanian's earlier novels in their |
Trevanian's Desk/On film - 8
'And, finally, the ever-dreaded "10 films you would bring with you on a desert island". I could never regret having chosen any of the following, but after ten or twenty years, I would probably regret not having chosen others. Note: A reduction to 15 was relatively simple; the last five were cut from the flesh of the heart.'
3:1O TO YUMA 1957 (Delmer Daves) * FIRES ON THE PLAIN 1959 (Kon Ichikawa) GRANDE ILLUSION, LA 1937 (Jean Renoir) IKIRU 1952 (Akira Kurosawa) JOUR SE LEVE, LE 1939 (Marcel Carné) NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, THE 1955 (Charles Laughton) SINGIN' IN THE RAIN 1952 (Gene Kelly/Stanley Donen) THIRD MAN, THE 1949 (Carol Reed) TOUCH OF EVIL 1958 (Orson Welles) WAGES OF FEAR, THE 1951 (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
'A different kind of list. Here are 17 films I consider vital to the cinematic vocabulary of a film director or writer, and therefore absolutely basic to the library of any school of film-making. No training director or writer should see each of these films fewer than twenty times. The potential director's eye should memorize them.'
3:1O TO YUMA 1957 (Delmer Daves) * Ŕ BOUT DE SOUFFLE 1960 (Jean-Luc Godard) BICYCLE THIEVES 1947 (Vittorio de Sica) CITIZEN KANE 1941 (Orson Welles) EARTH 1930 (Alexander Dovshenko) FIRES ON THE PLAIN 1959 (Kon Ichikawa) HUSBANDS 1970 (John Cassavetes) IKIRU 1952 (Akira Kurosawa) JOUR SE LEVE, LE 1939 (Marcel Carné) MAN OF ARAN 1934 (Robert Flaherty) * NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, THE 1955 (Charles Laughton) ODD MAN OUT 1946 (Carol Reed) REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT 1962 (Ralph Nelson) STRIKE 1924 (Sergei Eisenstein) THIRD MAN, THE 1949 (Carol Reed) TOUCH OF EVIL 1958 (Orson Welles) WAGES OF FEAR, THE 1951 (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Some observations: 'Although Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and John Huston have ten films among them on the '100 Best' list, only one (Huston's The Maltese Falcon, 1941) made it onto the 'long-wearing' list, and none onto the 'Desert Island' or 'Food for Directors' lists. A remark on the significant difference between and 'important' films and good films.
Also, although the 100 Best Films list included work by Godard, Duvivier, de Sica, Dovshenko, Pabst, Welles, Kazan, Ophuls and Fellini, most of which survived into the 'Food for Directors' list, not one of these survived into the 'Desert Island' list, because there the good was more important than the 'important'. But the 'Desert Island' list includes films by Kon, Renoir, Kurosawa,Carné and Welles, so one may suppose that some films are both 'good' and 'important'.
Although the overwhelming percentage of '100 Best' films were American- or English-made, half of the 'Desert Island' and 'Food for Directors' lists films were made by non-English-Speaking directors.
The appearance on the '100 Best' List of films by such second-level artists as Delmer Daves, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Robert Rossen, Vincente Minnelli, Blake Edwards, Richard Brooks, Bretaigne Windust, Norman Jewison, Clarence Brown, Alfred Santell, Robert Hamer, Sam Wood, Alexander Mackendrick, Charles Crichton, Guy Green, Edmund Goulding, Ronald Neame, Ralph Nelson, Jack Clayton, Stanley Donen, Jack Garfein, Robert Mulligan, Laslo Benedek, and Michael Cacoyannis is evidence that (1) directors sometimes excell themselves, that (2) some directors get few chances to display their qualities, or that (3) some films are excellent for reasons other than the contribution of their directors.'
©1975Trevanian
this edition ©2005Trevanian
