50 Best Films - 1950s & 1960s

In his second selection of 50 best films, the Principal chooses films made between the post-war austerity of 1950 and 1967’s ‘summer of love’, taking in the European New Wave.

Rashomon - Kurosawa 1950

The tale of a crime told convincingly with varying interpretations from different points of view makes for a film of dizzying perspectives. By the end you don’t quite know who to believe, and your trust in the narrators is compromised by each re-telling. The Usual Suspectsborrowed this technique to fine effect.

Wages of Fear - Henri-Georges Clouzot 1953

What if you had to drive a truck with several thousand sticks of dynamite across the desert with its uneven terrain. Would a high salary tempt you? That’s the dilemma Clouzot sets here. An incredibly tense and suspenseful movie, whose last shot of a dead driver clutching an old Metro ticket like a charm is the kind of thing that keeps the film human, grounded and touching.

Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock 1954

I have seen this film many times, from the opening of montage of a hot day, to the tomato-red sunset, to the suspicion of a murder in one of the apartment buildings across the way. The wedding ring is the clue, and matrimony the theme as the hero’s girlfriend wants to settle down; but the hero resists domestication – he’s a combat photographer. Of course, she turns out to be braver than him.

Elevator to the Gallows - Louis Malle 1958

Imagine you commit the perfect murder, then there’s a power cut and you get stuck in the lift, while your girlfriend – the dead man’s wife – waits outside, thinking you’ve run away and abandoned her. The score by Miles Davies is not the least of the pleasures of this film. And Jeanne Moreau’s walk through the streets of nocturnal Paris while searching for her lover is beyond gorgeous.

Some Like it Hot - Billy Wilder 1959

Marilyn Monroe’s wiggle may have been the selling point but she proves a great comic actress and foil to the roles of the cross-dressing Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon – in disguise to escape the mob after witnessing a shooting. Those aren’t guns in their cases, they’re musical instruments. Hilarity ensues. Wilder didn’t turn to comedy until his old age, but it was worth the wait.

Breathless - Jean-Luc Godard 1959

The birth of the jump cut and the birth of the cool. The jumpiness of the movie may have been a stylistic decision to disrupt the viewer, or an attempt by Godard to shorten the movie after the producers complained it ran too long. Whatever the truth, the leads look wonderful, horsing around in Paris, Belmondo playing amateur gangster to Seberg’s moll. The French New Wave at its best.

La Dolce Vita - Federico Fellini 1960

I love the way Fellini uses dynamics – a loud scene followed by a quiet scene. Endlessly stylish, if one scene too long, it is fantastically acted by Marcello Mastroianni. This is where the word ‘paparazzo’ comes from. But behind the bright lights and celebrity lie ordinary tales of boredom, disappointment and betrayal. Fellini manufactures then punctures the froth, including religious hysteria.

Jules et Jim - Francois Truffaut 1962

A delightful film, seemingly naïve yet tremendously artful in developing the central triangular relationship that is then disrupted by war. Innocence and experience are the themes, but the youthful relish and vigour of the protagonists make the relationships seem fresh, as if we’ve known – and liked – these people all our lives.

8 ½ - Federico Fellini 1963

Here is Mastroianni again in top form as the blocked Director, looking for inspiration and finding emblems for his inner world in the outer world, and translating them into his art. The way Claudia Cardinale brings Mastroianni a glass of water at the spa is about as great a cinematic moment as you could wish for. The carnivalesque ending is uplifting and magical.

Persona - Ingmar Bergman 1966

Of all Bergman’s films, this is my favourite. Less portentous than The Seventh Sealor Wild Strawberries, it is a visual feast. The central female characters are both compelling presences on screen, and while there is much silence, the effect is psychologically intriguing rather than merely brooding. Bergman worked in the theatre, too, but this is cinema at its purest.

 

If I had to choose only one of the above it would be Rear Window.

If I had to choose only one scene, it would be this from Elevator to the Gallows.  https://youtu.be/1OKQdp6iGUk 

 

Chris Greenhalgh
Principal & CEO