Edgar Wright’s Top 1000 - Part The First - In The Beginning...

Having something structured to focus me on watching is helping to stop me from getting ten minutes into things and then switching them off because I’m not in the mood only to repeat that process three times over. Making notes about that stuff is then also giving me something to focus on. All of which means you’re going to get a lot of toot coming your way on this here bloggy thing over the coming weeks. As always, your obligation to read is non-existent so feel free to pick and choose.

A while back, filmmaker Edgar Wright (director of classic sitcom Spaced as well as equally classic films like Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End which he also co-wrote) published a list in chronological order of his top 1000 films. I like this idea as, whenever anyone asks me what my favourite film is, my only response is that given enough time I could give them a number of lists by genre in no particular order (order dependent on mood and other nebulous factors). Also recommending 1000 films gives plenty of scope to discover a lot of new films and maybe ones you wouldn’t have considered before. It’s a good prompt too - there a ton of films on this list that have elicited the response “Oh yeah, I really should watch that” from me. Well, here’s a good excuse to direct me to those ones.

Going through the list, I’ve already watched about 430 of them so that gives me about 570 to get through. Last year was a heavy film watching year and I got through 135 films so this might take me some time...

So how am I going to approach this? I’d considered going through and watching the list in order but I figure that, even though there are probably a lot of good films back in the early days of cinema on the list, I might need to flip and forth to keep my interest up. Variety and all that.

For starters, though, I am going to kick off with some of the earliest ones on the list that I’ve watched so far. 

The Cabinet Of Doctor Caligari (1920)
Dir. Robert Wiene / Dur. 74 mins

The first film on the list (being the earliest one on there) and the first one I haven’t seen either so a good starting point. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this, given that the film is 100 years old. It’s often held by serious film fans as a classic but that doesn't always equate to something enjoyable (I understand the importance of 2001: A Space Odyssey and appreciate its technicality but find it utterly boring).
Here, the weird, twisted, oddly-angled sets, the hyper-stylised performances, the strangely disjointed storytelling (all of which become linked together by the ending) means that this still stands up to a modern viewing. I can see the impact this has had on later filmmakers, especially people like David Lynch. A good start to the list viewing.

The General (1926)
Dir. Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman / Dur. 71 mins
I’m a big fan of old black and white film comedy. Laurel & Hardy, The Marx Brothers and Harold Lloyd have always been form favourites but I was never a fan of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton so this list is a chance to re-evaluate and see if I feel differently about them. The thing that struck me the most about the film is how technically accomplished it is. As a director, Keaton has a great eye for composition. As a performer, the technicality of some of the in-camera stunts he archives are impressive (such as sitting on the front of a moving train and throwing a log precisely onto another log blocking the track in order to clear it before the train hits). Is it funny though? From my point of view, not really. I chuckled once or twice but it didn't make me laugh. That said, for technical impressiveness alone, I would watch another Buster Keaton film.

Off to a start with this one then. I’ve watched quite a few more off the list already so more to come…