Tis the season . . . for movie lists! We celebrate this at Mid Century Cinema with our annual Top Ten Home Video releases. Do keep in mind, as always, that this is not so much a list favorite movies newly available in 2021, but rather reflects the “best of home video 2021”—and so it is skewed towards packages that offer valuable extras, and those that feature favored films previously hard to find or are otherwise obscure.
Our deeply-held philosophy is to vehemently refuse to rank order the list, reviling the practice as odious, unclean, unacceptable, and simply not to be done. It is an iron-clad law that we stick to (a quick review confirms) . . . about half the time. In some years, spectacular issues like the Big Bergman Box simply leave non-ranking impossible. This year’s list is sort of roughly loosely in order of preference; what can I say, in scanning the candidates for inclusion in this set revealed that some entries were All-Timers (and placed at the very top), and that we feel much more passionately about the entries on the first half of the list than the second. Philistine, to be sure, but can’t pretend it is not the case. And so, without further . . .
Citizen Kane. Stop worrying about whether this is The Greatest Movie Ever Made (that’s pressure few lovers could live up to), and just settle for appreciating a work of staggering genius that was revolutionary in its day and is still fresh, vital and alive eighty years after its release. And remember to remain awestruck that its director, star, co-writer and co-producer was a twenty-five year old neophyte when he made this film. You’ve probably seen the movie, but race out nevertheless and buy the Criterion Collection’s new restoration—complete with two Blu-ray discs full of amazing extras.
The Beatles: Get Back. We just wrote about this one, so no need no repeat ourselves, other than to note that Michael Lindsey-Hogg’s cheerfully frustrated, late-in-the-day comment “expect is not a word we use anymore” is up there with Paul’s “I think you’ll find we’re not going abroad” among our new go-to phrases. This one has a chance to make next years’ list as well, as we remain hopeful for a massive box set that includes additional material from these archives as well as the original Let It Be.
The Clockmaker. The first film of Bertrand Tavernier, one of Mid Century Cinema’s favorite directors, has finally been bestowed with an outstanding special edition—complete with a riveting feature-length director’s commentary track. One of the great films of the 1970s (that’s pretty high praise, coming from us), we were extremely pleased to have the opportunity to discuss this one in the current Cineaste. [NB: another notable 2021 home video release is Tavernier’s massive Journeys Through French Cinema, now available on Blu-ray from the Cohen media group.]
The Clockmaker
The Parallax View. Warren Beatty stars in this, the middle entry of the “paranoid trilogy” from Alan J. Pakula (and legendary New Hollywood cinematographer Gordon Willis). Another favorite we were able to write about recently, to this effect: “One of the soaring achievements of the cinema of the 1970s. The Parallax View’s visual precision, eye-catching beauty and razor sharp attention to architectural setting and minute detail are such that with this new 4K restoration, even some repeat viewers will experience an entirely new film.”
Hemingway. A three-part, six-hour documentary on the legendary writer. Were filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick up to the formidable challenge of showing both the sheer brilliance of the writing, and the complexity and (at times considerable) character flaws of the writer? Yes—which is no mean feat in this era of obsessive, dutiful virtue-signaling. Hemingway’s prose (voiced by Jeff Daniels) soars, and, ironically perhaps, among the highlights of this immersion into masculinist bravado is the time spent with two remarkable women: third wife Martha Gellhorn, and interviewee Edna O’Brien.
After Dark, My Sweet. A nifty under the radar film noir from 1990 with Jason Patrick, Rachel Ward and Bruce Dern, directed by James Foley from a Jim Thompson novel (as many great modern noirs tend to me). Smart, atmospheric, well done and understated. As Roger Ebert observed, despite being “almost forgotten,” it “remains one of the purest and most uncompromising of modern films noir.” Now available in an outstanding special edition from Carlotta films.
The Parallax View
Little Murders. This offbeat film from 1971 – written by Jules Feiffer, directed by Alan Arkin, and starring Elliott Gould – is structurally unsound and doesn’t quite hold together as a single coherent entity. But there are several stand-alone stretches of sheer brilliance: Gould, bloodied on the subway, to pitch-perfect seventies indifference; a great wedding sequence featuring Donald Sutherland; a hauntingly prescient (and evergreen) over-the-top law-and-order speech by Vincent Gardenia; and Gould’s spellbinding monologue about his correspondence with the FBI man monitoring his phone calls. Now available in a well-appointed special edition from Powerhouse films
La Piscine. A very fine film, and our favorite from writer-director Jacques Deray, with just an outstanding cast (Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Maurice Ronet, Jane Birkin, and Paul Crauchet). Nicely shot and subtly written (this comes out especially on a second viewing), if not quite a “masterpiece” it is nevertheless a pleasure throughout, nicely packaged from the criterion collection. [Let us pause here to note, also this year from Criterion, arrives a welcome restoration of Jacques Rivette’s legendary Celine and Julie Go Boating, which David Thomson called “the most innovative film since Citizen Kane.” We can’t quite recommend it, having not yet fallen for its charms, but both Rivette and Thomson merit the benefit of the doubt. And as the latter privately assured us, “you still have time.”]
Underworld USA. A typically tough guns and gangs policer from Samuel Fuller, featuring Cliff Robertson as the grown man on a mission to take on the mobsters who did him wrong in his youth. Steeped in moral ambiguity and hurtling like a runaway truck towards its hard-boiled conclusion, if you like Sam Fuller (and Martin Scorsese, who introduces this special edition, has compared him to the Rolling Stones), you’ll like this one.
The African Queen. A confession: I don’t really like this movie. But I revere almost every one of its participants in front of and behind the camera (that’s probably why I prefer Clint Eastwood’s underappreciated fictionalized account of its making, White Hunter, Black Heart). But maybe we’re wrong about this beloved classic. And the extras on this new edition from Masters of Cinema are worth the price of admission alone.