Barbara Reichardt, Wendy and Lucy (2008); Old Joy (2006)

Kelly Reichardt is the textbook definition of an independent film auteur. Indie-film-cineastes will love her work while indie-film-haters will despise them. The two films, Wendy and Lucy (2008) and Old Joy (2006), share a common vibe- 20- or 30- something American protagonists battle life amidst the backdrop of the silent, awe-inspiring natural world of Oregon.

The plots are deceivingly simple on paper. In Old Joy, two best friends from college reunite for a weekend camping trip in the Oregon woods; in Wendy and Lucy, Wendy and her dog Lucy become stranded in a small Oregon town when her car breaks down. Both films plod along these plot lines with a slow, unaltered pace like a meandering walk in the Oregon woods.

The beauty of the film lies in the unspoken word- the silence and the expressions of the characters' faces tell their tales often without any accompanying dialogue. In the case of Old Joy, we see two main characters Mark and Kurt (played by the great musician Will Oldham), whose lives were in an earlier time, probably very similar, but who have chosen very different roads in life. Mark has chosen a more traditional path in life: in the beginning we see his pregnant wife, we see he drives a Volvo station wagon and lives in a nice middle-class house. This is juxtaposed against Kurt, a free-spirit dreamer, the type of person who you might look up to when you're in college for his rejection of authority, pursuit of principles and a naturalistic philosophy of the world. However, when viewed in the eyes of a 30-something, his outlook seems out-of-touch with reality and perhaps even irresponsible. In some ways, Old Joy mirrors the film and directorial style of classic films from the 70s: we know all these things about the characters without having been told it by the usual visual devices.

Wendy and Lucy is similarly beautiful - Michelle Williams. is probably best known as being Heath Ledger's fiance, but she shines in this role as Wendy as she never has before. Reichardt's deft camera movements captures the worried look on her face as she experiences a host of obstacles (starting with the collapse of her car, and continuing throughout the film). By far the best example of the unspoken directorial devices is the scene where she encounters a stranger in the woods where she is forced to sleep for the night. This scene coupled with the subsequent flight from the woods back to the safe zone of the neighborhood gas station, tell an entire film's worth of story with almost no dialogue.

These films, which were filmed on seemingly minuscule budgets, show that film is not dead in the 21st century, that you don't have to have hundreds of millions of dollars or telegraph every plot point to a dumbed-down audience in order to make a film that's engaging throughout.

Michael Cimino, The Deer Hunter (1978)

Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter is a classic film which seems to continue to improve in quality with age. During its long three-hour runtime, about two-thirds of the film utilize a slow pace to depict the interrelationships in the small mining town in Pennsylvania while the remaining third of the film is set in Vietnam and filled with a non-stop chaotic tension.

The town of Clairton, Pennsylvania represents a staid, gritty America with limited hope of the “good life” but which is still infinitesimally better than the horrors soldiers experienced fighting in Vietnam. The Clairton community is filled with love but everything is subtly tainted: Linda (played by Meryl Streep) is physically abused by her alcoholic father, John Cazale's character looks at his reflection in the broken window of a pristine car, Steven's (played by John Savage) wedding is tainted by an illegitimate daughter and at the climax of Steven's Russian-Orthodox wedding two drops of blood spill on his wife's wedding dress (a symbol of Nick and Steven's demise in Vietnam?). These details from the first hour of the film give the The Deer Hunter a richness and set the tone and context of the main characters progression through the rest of the film.

The flaws in these characters’ lives in the US, however, are both magnified and pales in comparison with the tragedy they experience during and after their experience in Vietnam. The Russian roulette contests which occur in the prison camp and in private gambling sessions come to symbolize the chaos of the war and the commodization of human life. People, both the Vietnamese and the American soldiers, become completely disposable, serving only to smoothly facilitate the commercial of wealthy individuals both in view and behind the scenes.

There are also a number of tremendous back-stories related to The Deer Hunter: John Cazale, a close colleague of both Deniro and Pacino, was dying of bone cancer during the filming of Deer Hunter. Michael Cimino, the director, never achieved anywhere close to the excellence of the Deer Hunter. And, The Deer Hunter’s place in history as one of the first films about the Vietnam War which highlighted both the horrors of war (a predecessor to Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, etc etc) as well as the effect on the families and friends of the soldiers back home.

Don Siegel, The Shootist (1976)

The Shootist will be forever remembered for one thing - it was John Wayne's last film. Admittedly, it contains a lot of cliches from the Western film genre - an aging gunslinger looking to find some inner peace, the host of villains who want to see him dead, a Wild West town where the sheriff is weak and the outlaws run the show. The Shootist has all these elements and the trailer (see it here), seems to be marketing all these cliches as the reason why you would want to see this film.

Beneath all the schlock, there are some really great moments of this film which make it worthwhile. First, the cast – Hollywood knew that John Wayne had health issues and that this might be his last film, so the stars just piled on to participate- James Stewart, Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, David Carradine all took salary decrements to joined the cast.

Secondly, this film’s value resides in those personal scenes where John Wayne’s character, John Bernard Books, struggles with his mortality: his conversation with Lauren Bacall on a horse-drawn carriage ride, his words of wisdom to Ron Howard while teaching him how to shoot, his discussion with James Stewart (the doctor) who tells John Wayne that his cancer is terminal. Ironically, John Wayne, who did not have cancer during this film, would die of cancer two years after making this film. And of course, Don Siegel's final shoot-‘em-up scene, shot with creative staging using mirrors of the barroom, allows John Wayne to exit from the silver screen for the final time in a blaze of glory.

Finally, the scene before the final gunfight is better than any other scene in the film and on its own makes teh film a classic. Books is preparing to leave the house, off to his final gun battle and Lauren Bacall meets him at the door. Everyone knows what’s going to happen- the audience knows it, John Wayne knows it and Lauren Bacall has already promised the night before not to question Books decision or try to stop him. Instead, their eyes meet and she talks about the weather- how it feels like “false spring” – a warmth that will not last. I read the scene as Hollywood’s on-screen coup de grace for John Wayne- a simple tribute, inexorably sad but without any open mourning for the Duke. Probably exactly what John Wayne wanted.

Unfortunately, I could not find this clip on the internet, so you’ll just have to watch it for yourself. You won’t likely be disappointed.

Arthur Penn, Night Moves (1975)

Night Moves is a big budget, mainstream film from 1975 with the requisite ingredients of its genre: a star director (Arthur Penn), a star male lead (Gene Hackman) and more than a few attractive female characters (Susan Clark, Jennifer Warren and a young Melanie Griffith). There are a few laugh-out-loud pages of dialogue which have not aged well over the past three decades. One example of high unintentional comedy involved a long discussion between Hackman and Jennifer Warren reminiscing about the erect nipples of youth.

However, for the most part what I realized watching Night Moves is just how dumbed down most mainstream films are today. The "mystery" uncovered by Gene Hackman's private eye (an homage to the airplane scene in North by Northwest) is interesting, but the real value in NM resides in its subtext. The film's title is revealed as a double entendre in a scene where Hackman describes to Warren about the knight moves in a chess match by two great masters. Hackman describes how the chess champion lost the match and regretted his whole life that he missed the opening in the match for checkmate in three simple moves of the knight. This dialogue is juxtaposed against the chess match of plot movements, as the mystery unfolds and Harry Moseby slowly determines who's lying and who's telling the truth. Admittedly, its completely unbelievable that Jennifer Warren's character (a drifter living in the Florida Keys) would understand the elegance of a series of chess moves from a match which occured a decade earlier, but it does, however, work as a neo-noir metaphor for the intricate plot of the film.

Finally, the other cool thing about this film is that the Harry Moesby character is essentially a pre-cursor for Hackman's Coach Norman Dale character from Hoosiers: at one point he shakes a booklet while yelling at James Woods character, he gives a couple of speeches which felt like you were transported to the Hickory High locker room. In the end, it not a film that will change your life, but it is certainly engaging throughout.

Roman Polanski, Chinatown (1974)

Chinatown (1974), Roman Polanski's noir classic about the corrupt underbelly of Los Angeles, won all the awards of its day and is cited as the mold for crime thrillers for many years to come. Rotten Tomatoes does not have a negative review of the film and Spike Lee says its his favorite. But watching it from today's perspective, does it truly meet the high standard of these accolades?

For me the answer is: "yes, for the most part". First, its amazing how many recent films have ripped off many of the elements of this film. In fact, L.A. Confidential (1998) won more Oscars than Chinatown did and completely copied its "how L.A. once was" style, its noirish tone and its musical score (compare here and here). If film plagiarism was a crime, Confidential's director Curtis Hanson and screenwriter Brian Helgeland would still be in jail today. And surprisingly, Matt Damon was not the first person to utter the famous line "How 'bout them apples" in Good Will Hunting (1997); Jack Nicolson's character, J.J. Gittes, uttered the line a quarter century before him! Finally, Chinatown truly sets the standard for suspense- long slow pacing is interrupted abruptly by tense music followed usually by a burst of action and often violence.

But is it perfect? No. At times the pacing of the film is too slow for my tastes (L.A. Confidential suffered the same malady). Polanski needs the slow pacing to keep the audience guessing as Gittes slowly unravels a complex mystery. And this is really a small quibble, especially given the backdrop of today's rock em', sock 'em non-stop action overkill film industry. In the end, if you thought the revelation that Luke's father is Dark Vader, then you will enjoy the fabulous familial plot twist that Chinatown throws out near the end of the film.

Ernst Lubitsch, Trouble in Paradise (1932)

There's something clearly ahead-of-its-time modern about Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise. In watching old films from the 1920s, 30s and 40s, I find that dramas such as Renoir's The Rules of the Game (1939) and Lang's Metropolis (1929) tend to be much more watchable today than comedies from these decades. Perhaps there is something in the nature of humor and comedy that is era-centric. What is biting and witty to one generation becomes cliche and kitsch to the next generation.

Trouble is one of the exceptions to this rule. Filled with biting sarcasm and double entendres, Trouble plays like a Shakesperian comedy and keeps the viewer engaged and laughing throughout. The so-called "Lubitsch touch" as it pertains to this film is a directorial pacing which keeps the story moving at a fun and light pace as well as visual witticisms such as the opening of the film which shows the words "Trouble in" and shows an empty bed for two, followed seconds later by the word "Paradise" (check it out at the 40 second mark of this link).

This attention to detail and subtle directorial style causes Trouble to remain one of the great comedies even today.

Craig Brewer, Hustle & Flow (2005), Andrew Bujalski, Funny Ha Ha (2002)

At first glance, a comparison of Andrew Bujalski's Funny Ha Ha and Craig Brewer's Hustle and Flow is unfair. Funny is a low-budget film without major studio backing, whereas Hustle was backed by a major name (John Singleton) and was remarkable for the buzz it received as a symbol of how the Sundance Film Festival has sold out to the corporate gods. Interestingly, the NY Times slammed Hustle as "naive" and "rubbish", while fawning over the "beautiful" Funny.

In some respects, both films should be lauded: both 24-year old Bujalski and 34-year-old Brewer wrote scripts and directed these films which really capture the subgroup of society that they are attempting to portray. Similarly, both directors aspire to be a John... Bujalski wants to be John Cassavettes and Brewer wants to be John Singleton (check out min 33 of this interview). But what sets Brewer's Hustle several steps above Funny is the fact that he has written a script about a group to which he does not belong to: the predominantly black poor of Memphis.

Brewer has absorbed his rather sad history and personal traumas (the death of his father) and created an energetic film with the positive message of the benefits of doing whatever's necessary to follow your dream, as exemplified by this scene where the main characters cut their hit rap track. Bujalski, who comes from a wealthy New England suburb of priviledge has written a largely negative and angst-ridden film about twenty-somethings with no major life traumas who are struggling to find their path in the world. Which is not to say that Bujalski's depiction is inaccurate; its just that it generates no emotion when viewed next to Brewer's characters' more serious plights in life.

Both are worth watching though those who do not love independent films might struggle with the slow pace and low budget rough edges of Funny.