Inspired by Jacques Tati, I decided to put together a list of movies that I think belong in a museum. If you care to play along, here’s the scenario:
You are approached by your local art museum because they read your highly-successful movie blog and liked your style. They give you a room in the museum and one calendar year. They tell you that you have to pick 12 movies by 12 different filmmakers. Each month, one of your movies will be projected perpetually on the wall. You quickly brainstorm a list, just like I did, and then without a lot of thought, my usual style, you create your list. What are you showing?
Here’s mine. It’s in no particular order, and the months don’t really matter. Like, I didn’t put any thought into whether or not such-and-such is a good November movie or not. It’s all pretty random. But here’s my list, and I’d be thrilled if you shared your own or let me know what I might have left off. There are links to my reviews of these if they’re available just in case you’re interested in reading more poor writing.
Oh, and I’m leaving Playtime off, just because I wanted to open up another spot. It would probably be in there.
January: Last Year at Marienbad
This puzzling movie is one of the first I thought about, so I’ll put it in January. I limited myself to one movie per director, but that doesn’t rule out using the same cinematographer more than once. This won’t be the last Sacha Vierny movie in the list.
February: Barbarella
This might not be a good movie, but who wouldn’t want to see this Jane Fonda projected on a wall for an entire month? I wanted to include a bad movie because I love bad movies, and this one is probably the most museum-worthy bad movie I can think of.
March: Eraserhead
If you know me at all, the inclusion of this David Lynch first feature is no surprise. Such a great demonstration of how you can do so much with nothing more than a vivid imagination. This movie’s the closest to a dream that you’ll ever see on screen.
April: The Cook, His Wife, The Thief, and Her Lover
Sacha Vierny again, with this Peter Greenaway movie. I almost went with Drowning by Numbers or A Zed and Two Noughts, but I figured I would go with something I actually have a link to. I guess projecting this bad boy on the wall would force the museum to make an age requirement. No kids allowed anymore because no child should see that much cannibalism. Or penis.
May: Man with a Movie Camera
Again, if you know me at all, you probably would guess that I’m going to include at least one silent movie. I’m picking this one over any of my beloved silent comedies, Metropolis, or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari because it’s so visually adventurous, one of those things I just figure opened doors for so many other filmmakers. Of course, I could just project Melies shorts, too.
June: Enter the Void
I’m still not even sure I like this challenging Gaspar Noe trippy epic, but one thing’s clear–there’s nothing else like it. Again, with its trips into genitalia and druggy ways, you’ll probably want to make sure you keep the kids away. Just let them stay in the Gertrude Stein exhibit maybe while the adults venture in to have their minds blown by this one.
July: Koyaanisqatsi
Probably too obvious. The Enter the Void/Koyaanisqatsi juxtaposition isn’t the best, but I initially had something else here and realized that I just couldn’t leave this out. An artistic triumph! If any movie was made to be projected on a museum wall, it’s this one.
August: The Holy Mountain
It had to be either this masterpiece of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s or El Topo, equally a masterpiece. They’re both visual gems which is important for my museum movie collection, but this one’s imagery might be a little more exhilarating. Like a lot of these picks, you could pause this at numerous times and have a still that’s worthy of being displayed in a museum. Moving, it’s all even better.
September: The Triplets of Belleville
I had to include an animated movie and had trouble deciding between newfangled computer animated favorites, old and probably obvious Disney choices, something by Hayao Miyazaki, or one of those stop-animated things I love so much. For a variety of reasons, this Chomet classic sticks with me, so it goes up on the wall for September.
October: A Clockwork Orange
October’s my birth month, so it gets what might be my favorite movie. 2001 could be the more obvious choice, but the visual style of this Kubrick movie blows me away just as much. Besides, museums dig phalluses.
November: The Color of Pomegranates
How many movies on this list are movies that I’m not really smart enough to understand? This Sergei Parajanov movie has bewildering imagery and symbolism and is still unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. And that’s reason enough to include it.
December: You, the Living
And I’ll end the year with probably the only movie I’ve listed here that I would never take out of the list. Anything else, I could substitute with something else and be fine. You’re not convincing me that this Roy Andersson movie isn’t going on my wall. I love this movie and, like Tati, there’s so many frames of this that are showcasing the artistic potential of the cinema. And it’s hilarious.
Here’s stuff I didn’t mention up there that I’ll include when the museum, after liking what I’ve done so much, decides to give me more months:
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Russian Ark
I Am Cuba
Lots of Wes Anderson or Tarkovsky stuff
Apocalypse Now
Tree of Life (or maybe Days of Heaven)
Spirit of the Beehive
Vertigo
Amelie
8 1/2 or Amarcord (one of these I actually had in there but took out because Philip Glass wouldn’t stop bugging me)
The American Astronaut
Night of the Hunter
The Wizard of Oz
Raise the Red Lantern
Taxidermia
The Third Man
Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace
Once Upon a Time in the West (or other Leone flicks)
La Jetee
Anything else? What would you show?