Epics - A Debriefing

It's time for a little Post-Genre Post. What do I ultimately feel about the movies I've watched? Certainly, they were all good, and certainly they were all long, but there's more to it than that. What do I feel about each movie, and do I agree with The American Film Institute?

*THE AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTES TOP TEN AMERICAN EPICS*

My Interpretation:

#10 - The Ten Commandments: A good movie, but not really spectacular. It's epic-ness comes off as rather forced, through crowds and green screens and dramatic delivery, and none of the other movies have that problem. Most of the other movies are epic more easily.

#9 - Reds: Long and boring, but probably technically a good movie. The most interesting part of it was Jack Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill, and how incredibly creepy he was.

#8 - Saving Private Ryan: Very good movie. It's very chaotic, and ends really suddenly, which is kind of jarring. The opening scene is the most powerful depiction of war I've ever seen, not that I've seen that many. It I was The American Film Institute, I would have put this movie ahead of both All Quiet on the Western Front and Titanic.

#7 - All Quiet on the Western Front: Very old, and doesn't really stand the test of time. It has a very good story, but terrible imagery, camera work, and other cinematography things.

#6 - Titanic: Good cinematography, terrible story.

#5 - Spartacus: Spartacus is pretty boss. Fun movie, totally awesome, much like The Ten Commandments, but better and with gladiators and Kirk Douglas.

#4 - Gone With the Wind: Who doesn't love Gone With the Wind? When I think classic movies, I think Gone With the Wind. I love this movie, and can't wait to watch it again when it comes up in Romances.

#3 - Schindler's List: Terrific movie, very impactful, and probably the saddest thing ever. You'll be a mess after you watch it, trust me.

#2 - Ben-Hur: The epic of all epics, Ben-Hur's a fun movie. It still comes off as slightly over-dramatic (I blame Charlton Heston for this), but it really is a good movie, and also has chariots. I don't think it's a better movie than Schindler's List, but I do think it's a better epic, and deserves its spot.

#1 - Lawrence of Arabia: The best epic I've ever seen, and one of the best movies I've ever seen as well. Well-acted, great story, great music, great visuals, great characters and lots of camels. If you're going to watch any movie on this list, make it Lawrence of Arabia.

Coming up next: Science Fiction, Oooooh.

Epic #1 - Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Lawrence of Arabia is a classic David Lean epic, and a winner of eight Oscars, based on the memoirs of T. E. Lawrence. T. E. Lawrence (That's Thomas Edward, by the way,) was a British military officer who lead the Arab revolt against the Turks during World War I. He was well-educated, flamboyant, clever and theatrical ("The most shameless exhibitionist since Barnum & Bailey,") and egotistical. Basically, he’s awesome. He knows it, too. He is absolutely certain that he’s amazing, and because he’s so convinced that he’ll succeed at everything he does, he can do just about anything. He’s successful merely because he’s certain that he’ll succeed. In fact, when he does eventually have a major failure later in the movie, he starts to lose his grip on things a bit. He’s darn good at his job before that, though, and looks pretty much awesome in his white robes.

Magnificent.

I don’t find this movie boring, but I can understand why people do. There certainly is a whole lot of desert in it. Some people say there’s too much desert, but I say pshaw! There’s no such thing as too much desert! It’s well-filmed desert. Some of the best desert you’ll ever be seeing.

The word “sweeping” comes to mind.

All the visuals in this movie are stunning. Between the sweeping deserts and the huge crowds of people on camels, you have the cities in Arabia, and huge boats, and the shadows. The use of shadows in this movie is really good. When a scene mostly takes place in the desert, it would be hard not to see the shadows at all, but the movie really puts the shadows to good use. You watch the shadows almost as much as you watch the actual people. Not to mention Lawrence’s magnificent white Arabic robes.

That’s awesome right there.

The first half of this movie is probably better than the second half, just because the first half is on such a bigger scale. The first half has huge shots of desert and scenery, and generally seems more epic than the second half, which appears to my untrained eye to be filmed more conventionally. The first half is about Lawrence's rise to this giant heroic figure, and how he's leading the Arab revolt to triumph. Everyone marvels at him, everyone admires him. He's different - he says so himself. He can do anything. He accomplishes things that others have declared can't be done because Allah has willed it to be so. He goes against God and succeeds. He's built up to be this great epic power, and he leads the Arabs to levels of success that they hadn't been reaching before (mostly because of lack of organization, really). Nobody else had thought of them enough to really help out at all, because the English were just viewing them as a sort of side-project, but Lawrence saw a chance for them (and himself) to be great.

The second half is where everything falls apart, both Lawrence's reputation and the revolt. In the end, the revolt goes against the British, instead of with the British, and eventually fails. Lawrence is sent home by General Allenby of England and Prince Feisal of Arabia, because despite his exalted reputation, he's just a pawn in the hands of these political leaders, and now he is no longer useful. The movie ends, very suddenly and without any fuss or even a good image, with Lawrence riding in a little army car in the vague direction of England. It's very understated compared to the rest of the movie, and after all the grandeur that's come before it, seems really anticlimactic, which I think is the point. After all that, Lawrence is just sent home to ride motorcycles. Not a god, not a hero, not different, but just another insignificant soldier.

This is definitely the most complex movie I’ve watched so far. The story itself is relatively simple, but you’ve got all kinds of crazy themes floating around in this movie. Lawrence is culturally conflicted between Arabia and Britain – He wants to be a part of the Arab culture, but he’s really not Arabic, he’s British, and he hates that. I don’t really blame him there – it sucks to be British in Lawrence of Arabia world, where they’re trying to defeat the Turks so they can split the Arabian Peninsula with the French, while telling the Arabs that they can help if they want to. There's Lawrence's status as some kind of god among men, and his eventual fall from this status, and the motifs about legacy, racism, heroism, the magnificence of the desert, culture, politics, and the place we call home. Every single event in this movie symbolizes something else, and honestly, I've watched it twice and I still don't think I quite understand it. There's this huge section in the middle where Lawrence goes through this bloody-thirsty streak that I don't understand at all, for example. This movie will take further study. My effort to interpret this movie is in fact responsible for the large delay between watching this movie and writing about it - a good three weeks. Very complex movie. And they blow up trains. That's art, that is.

This movie is wonderfully acted - there wasn't anyone in it who wasn't fabtastic. Omar Sharif, who plays Sheriff Ali, the buddy of Lawrence, not only has an awesome name, but also has a well-deserved Oscar nomination for this movie, and Arthur Kennedy is the notably awesome reporter Jackson Bentley, which is not easy, because as we all know, all reporters are awesome. Alec Guinness plays the magnificent political figure of Prince Feisal, and also Obi-Wan Kenobi, I am not even kidding, and earned a knighthood somewhere along the way. Even the extras were good. Peter O'Toole, however, is really good in this movie (I assume he's good in other movies, too, but I've never seen him anything else.), and also looks surprisingly like the actual T. E. Lawrence.

T. E. Lawrence is on the right. Peter O'Toole's usually in color, though, which is good, because if nothing else, Peter O'Toole at least has the bluest eyes I have ever seen.

My main impression of this movie, however is as follows: People riding camels. I'm pretty sure that by the end of this movie I had mastered the art of camel riding, just by observation. They ride a whole lot of a camels in this movie. And when they're not riding camels, they're carrying around their camel-driving sticks, and occasionally hitting people with them, when necessary. Camels seem to be an integral part of the entire movie, which is cool because camels are awesome, but I was not expecting before I started watching.

Looking back on the movie, though, my main impression wasn't actually camels. What really stuck with me was how good the music was. This is one of the best movie scores I've ever heard (Conducted by Sir Ardian Boult, by the way). The score is pretty famous, actually, which does not surprise me because it's fantastic, and is rated #3 on the American Film Institutes' list of best film scores. In fact, they rank this entire movie as the fifth best American movie ever. And you know, I totally agree with them. This is a fantastic movie, that does exactly what movies are supposed to do. It brings together it's visuals and its music and its acting and it tells this huge, meaningful story through them. It's a visual experience, and an audio experience, and it uses words and people, and it just all comes together beautifully. And Lawrence of Arabia makes the desert, of all places, seem appealing, which is quite a feat. I mean, the desert.

I am, by the way, very sorry about those two pictures up there in that bizarre crooked table. Have you ever tried to format in Blogger? It's hard.

Epic #2 - Ben-Hur (1959)

Now, I didn't mention this earlier when I was talking about Schindler's List, probably because I was slightly emotionally traumatized, but Epic #4 was Gone With the Wind. I would of course love to watch Gone With the Wind right now, who wouldn't, but it ranks much higher on the list of romances, so we'll just have to wait for a while for that. I know. It's tragic, but it can't be helped. More business I forgot to mention: The American Film Institute defines "epic" as "a genre of large-scale films set in a cinematic interpretation of the past," which not only contains the phrase "cinematic interpretation of the past, which I will totally be saying form now on, but also is a much clearer definition than the one that I had come up with, and explains why Titanic was the only movie to have a ship in it (that's a lie, actually: Ben-Hur has ships.) Apparently ships are not as essential to an epic as I thought they were. Pity. But enough business: Down to Ben-Hur.

Now this is an epic. It's just huge. It's got a ton of people, and horses and fighting and ships (take note of this, Internet), which is totally epic. When I think epic, I think Ben-Hur. I mean, look at the poster for God's sake! The title is carved from stone. Stone from the tombs of great ancient heroes, carved by the Gods of Great Big Epic Movies. I assume. That's how epic this movie is.

Ben-Hur is a William Wyler epic about a Judean prince (Judah Ben-Hur, played by the one and only Charleton Heston. ) who gets arrested, along with his mother and sister, serves time as a galley slave (ships are heavily featured in this part) and then escapes, and then vows revenge because he knows the guy who arrested him, and...stuff. Look, I dare you to try to summarize Ben-Hur without giving a synopsis of the entire movie. It can't be done, I tell you. This is an incredibly complicated movie, and the fact that it's four hours long doesn't help matters. Watching Ben-Hur is a serious commitment. You can't just decide to watch it, you practically have to plan ahead.

I liked this movie. I didn't think I would, but I did, which is nice. It's a lot like a combination of The Ten Commandments and Spartacus, but with chariots. It takes place in Rome like Spartacus, the main character is a Jewish slave for part of the movie, but also incredibly rich for the other part, like The Ten Commandments, a lowly slave sticks it to the man in Rome like in Spartacus, and it stars Charleton Heston, like The Ten Commandments. Now, I think I've made it clear that I'm not the biggest fan of Charleton Heston. He's just such a ham. Not that Kirk Douglas isn't kind of a ham, but at least he's a decent actor at the same time.

He's also fantastic at presenting Oscars. They should have just hired him instead of James Franco.

Charleton Heston does not have that distinction. He's just so stiff and dramatic, and always sounds like he's reading lines, which is not how actors should sound. Actors should sound like they're talking. He's pretty good in this movie though, so that's alright. As a side note,I don't know if you've noticed, but three movies so far, The Ten Commandments, Schindler's List and Ben-Hur, heavily feature the persecution of the Jewish. I know that three out of ten doesn't really seem like a huge ratio, but when you think about it, it's a bizarrely specific similarity. I guess that a disproportionately large amount of history just involves the persecution of the Jewish, as illustrated by three different movies about three different time periods where the Jewish were persecuted. Where is this animosity coming from, I ask you? Where?

The beginning of the movie takes place in year...one? Zero? It doesn't matter - Anno Domini. The first event of the movie is actually the birth of Christ.

It seems like this would be hard to top.

I bet you didn't know that Ben-Hur was secretly religious. Ben-Hur is actually tangential to the story of Jesus, with Jesus making appearances throughout the movie. He never speaks and you never see his face, but he's a really powerful presence anyway. It's very well done, and is probably the most inspiringly religious thing I've ever seen. The movie appropriately also ends with the Crucifixion of Christ, with the main characters understandably a bit upset about it. (They don't have to worry about it though- it gets better. Isn't Dramatic Irony just oodles of fun? )

That's not the best part of the movie though. The best part of this movie is...The Chariot Race.

It's not easy to convey a fanfare visually.

If you don't think that this chariot race tops the birth of Christ, than you don't know how awesome chariots are. This scene is fantastically famous, especially in movie world. It's this huge extravaganza of crazy chariotal competition. There's chariot tricks, which I didn't even know existed, and cheating, and chariots with spikes on them, and people getting trampled by horses, which was apparently a pretty basic stunt at the time. There's a lot of death, actually, because it's a Roman sport and the Romans like things to involve death, because the Romans were just a little bit crazy. It is awesome. There is a very famous urban legend that says that Charleton Heston is wearing a modern watch in this scene. Charleton Heston says that this is ridiculous - he's wearing wristbands that come up to his elbows, you wouldn't even be able to see a watch. Do you know what this tells me? Charleton Heston did forget to take off his watch. I told you they should have hired Kirk Douglas. Kirk Douglas would have taken off his watch.

In conclusion, Ben-Hur is an awesome, totally fun movie. It's the quintessential big-budget epic (Well, the second most quintessential, apparently), and it's totally obvious why. The story is good, the acting is good (Except perhaps some scenes with lepers that come off as quite silly), it's so epic, and everyone kind of seems like they're having fun, which is fun to watch. I totally liked watching this movie, and that's the goal people usually have when making movies. Good for them. In fact, most of the movies on this list where totally awesome (excluding Reds, of which I was not a fan). I can't imagine better epics than, say, the last four movies. Man, #1 better be a darn good movie.

Epic #3 - Schindler's List (1993)

Oh, how do I even talk about Schindler's List? It's a Stephen Speilberg film based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, and want to emphasize true story here, a member of the Nazi party during World War II who ran a factory run by the forced labor of the Jews. Eventually he realizes that he has to save people from certain death, and he uses his huge amount of wealth to get a bunch of people into his own separate camp and factory, where no one gets killed. That's what the "List" in the title refers to - Schindler's List of "essential workers" he needed for his factory; His list of people who were saved. He saves more than eleven hundred people in the end, and dies penniless. The movie stars Liam Neeson as Schindler and the guy who plays Voldemort as a Nazi. It was Stephen Speilberg's first really mature movie, and it won seven Oscars, including best picture.

I really don't even know what to say about this movie. There just aren't any words for it. It's the Holocaust and it's heroism and it's just...It's very good. It's got a good script and very, very powerful imagery. Incredibly powerful. It's got a ton of characters, but they don't get lost in the size of the movie. It's got very good music, but it's composed by John Williams, so there's no surprise there. It's filmed mostly in black and white, except for a few key objects (Oh, red sweater girl...), which works really well. It's just such a good movie.

I didn't actually cry though. I'm slightly worried that there might be something wrong with me because of this, but I'm going to put that aside for the moment. It's a very emotional movie throughout the whole thing. I'll definitely watch it again, but not for a very, very long time. That's alright though - I'm pretty sure it'll stick with me for a while. For me the worst part (emotionally) is the end. The war is over and a lot of people are alive, but Schindler just breaks down because he could have done so much more. He could have sold things and saved just ten more people from dying, or eleven, or twelve. That many people would be alive if he had done a little bit more. It was for me really tragic to think of that after all we'd seen of people being saved.

The story itself is an incredible story. This man who's so greedy and such a pig turns into a hero because that is the right thing, it was what he needed to do. Before he started saving people money was so important to him, but he gives that up so people can live. He's not what we view as a god person, quite the opposite in fact, but he turns out to be a hero. You can't make this kind of stuff up. Schindler's List isn't exactly an uplifting movie, but at the same time it's wonderful to see the kind of heroism that people are capable of, even the people you wouldn't expect to be heroes. Schindler's List recognizes both the evil and the incredible good in people, and that is terrific. This movie is wonderful, it's only possible fault being that its title is incredibly hard to type.

This is not an easy movie to watch. It's definitely a very very good movie, and an accurate portrayal of the Holocaust, and it definitely needs to exist, there should be a movie like this. It's just so hard to watch it . Knowing that all this happened, that somehow the Holocaust really happened and no one did anything is hard. This happened, and that's why this movie needs to be around, not only to remember the heroism of this man, but also to remember the villainy of other men. To remember what was done and to not let it be done again. To appreciate what was done about it, and the people who fought. That's what movies can do. That kind of thing is why I'm writing this blog. That is why movies are awesome.

Epic #5 - Spartacus (1960)

I'm sure you've heard his before, but: I am Spartacus. It's true. Spartacus, is, in fact, so awesome that I would be totally willing to claim to be him. He is amazing. This whole movie is really awesome, actually. I would so totally watch Spartacus again. I would buy Spartacus. It's quite awesome. Let me tell you why.

Spartacus is about...Spartacus, a Roman slave who's sold into a Gladiator school (apparently they had those), and then leads a mass revolt and commands an army of slaves against Rome. And then dies. Which is a bummer, but also awesome, because Spartacus is always awesome. I sort of thought that Spartacus was going to be a lot like The Ten Commandments, except with Rome instead of Egypt, and more Gladiators, but it wasn't. I really liked Spartacus. I liked all of the characters, and I liked the romance, and I actually rooted for the main characters. So that's good.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but I really love tag lines. It doesn't matter how good the movie is, the tag line is always silly. It's just a rule. This movie has really awesome silly tag lines. I was more entertained by reading these tag lines than I was by watching Reds. One of the tag lines describes Spartacus as "The thrilling adventure that electrified the world!", exclamation point and all. Another says that "It roars with fierce excitement!", which is totally the phrase I thought of while watching it. It's also "More titanic than any story ever told!" and I do have to give credit where credit is due here: Titanic was in fact more titanic than Spartacus. So good for them there. This last one is actually my favorite, so prepare yourself..."They trained him to kill for their pleasure...but they trained him a little too well..." I think the elipses make it. I love those elipses.

Spartacus is directed by Stanley Kubrick. I have seen Stanley Kubrick movies before, and I was very surprised by how...not weird this movie was. Seriously, there was no bizarre editing, no scenes in complete silence, no sweeping camera angles starting at the ceiling. There was some rather whimsical music. Surprisingly whimsical music, actually, for a movie about gladiators. There was also the single longest marching scene ever, when the Roman army advances on the slave army near the end. I swear this scene was five minutes long. It was just endless marching Roman soldiers.

Watching that scene is a lot like staring at this picture for four minutes.

Spartacus himself is really a lot like Charleton Heston's Moses in The Ten Commandments. There both very classic hero-type heroes. They're very manly and strong and dramatic. I liked Spartacus better than Moses though. Charleton Heston was very dramatic in his acting. The way he delivered his lines sounded a lot like he was dramatically delivering lines, which admittedly he was, but it shouldn't sound like that. When Kirk Douglas (He's Spartacus) delivers his lines, it sounds like Spartacus is a naturally dramatic person. It doesn't sound so much like he was acting. Usually the excessive hero-ness annoys me, but I liked Spartacus. He was very noble and strong and instead of being vaguely impatient with it, I could see why people admire that. Spartacus was a leader. It was very impressive.

In Spartacus, Crassus, the Roman lord in charge of defeating Spartacus, is played by Lawrence Olivier. Yes, not only is Lawrence Olivier The Best Hamlet Ever, he is also Sir Lawrence Olivier. I think that's why this movie is so awesome.

Lawrence Olivier is not the best part of this movie though.

This man is the best part of this movie.

That's Peter Ustinov, and he is awesome. In Spartacus he plays Batiatus, who runs the Gladiator school that Spartacus is sold to. The scenes he's in are some of the best scenes in the movie. He's just so good. You kind of have to watch the movie to know what I'm talking about, but he's great. He steals every single scene he's in. Apparently he actually wrote some of the scenes he's in, which explains why they're so terrific. It gets even better though, because he's been knighted. I know. You can't question knighthood.

Besides Sir Peter Ustinov, the best part of this movie is near the end. Spartacus' army has been defeated by the Roman army (I'm sorry if I'm spoiling this for anyone, but really you should know this, it's ancient history,) and the army says to the slaves, "Hey, if you tell us which one Spartacus is, we won't kill all of you." Faced with this decision, does Spartacus' army give him up? No! Every single one of them stands up and says "I am Spartacus." It is maybe the single most awesome thing I have ever seen. And what does Spartacus do? Spartacus is so touched by this that he allows one single manly tear to run down his face. Because Spartacus is that awesome.

I watched a restored version, and it looks really good. Really sharp and clear. Here's something cool: There's a scene in the middle of the movie that they cut out when the movie was first released, and they put the scene back in for the restoration. The sound had been lost, so they rerecorded it with other people. The person who recorded Lawrence Olivier's lines was Anthony Hopkins. Anthony Hopkins who was also knighted. I think it's obvious what makes this movie so incredible.

In conclusion, I would say that Spartacus is the best movie so far. I really enjoyed Spartacus, and I would totally watch it again. Kudos to you Stanley Kubrick.

Kudos to you.

Epic #6 - Titanic (1997)

I know what you're thinking. Yes, Titanic is a terrible movie. Yes, it's maudlin and the favorite movie of a large amount of preteen girls. (And yes, I did get "maudlin" from the thesaurus. It's a synonym for "schmaltzy.") Bizarrely, it's also a very good movie at the same time. It's an enigma. The romance, or the "plot," as they call it these days, sucks. It's ridiculous, and it's just silly. The actual sinking of the Titanic, however, is very, very well done. That is good film making. It almost has the opposite problem as All Quiet on the Western Front. All Quiet on the Western Front had a terrific story and terrible cinemtagrific movie stuff, for lack of a better term. Titanic has fantastic movie stuff, and a terrible story. Let us explore this.

Now, I've actually seen Titanic many times before (It's on TV a lot,) so when writing this post, I was able to focus some brain power on the actual blog itself. So far, my posts have been sort of lack-luster. They lack luster. So I thought, "Hey! Why don't I try a new format?" just exactly like that too, and then I thought: colons. Of course, I should present the movie in list form. It'd be like classic movie trading cards! Who doesn't want those? Let us proceed.


Release Year: 1997. But you knew that.

Director: James Cameron, but I bet you knew that too. His movies are okay, but make a staggering amount of money.

"Actors": Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

Oscars: At eleven Oscars each, Titanic and Ben-Hur are tied for the most Oscars ever won by a single movie.

Super-Quick-Summary (The hyphens are absolutely essential): Rose, a rich girl who feels trapped, and Jack, a starving artist who feels free, fall in love on the Titanic, which predictably sinks. Dramatic irony abounds.

Any Knights? (Because, as you know, you can't question knighthood.): Not to my knowledge. Shame.

Anything Laughably Bad?: Oh yes. Most of the acting really is terrible. I feel that if my high school drama club did a production of Titanic, the quality of acting would be about the same. Beyond the awkwardly delivered lines is the awkwardly written script, which you can tell is bad because even the actual actors in the movie don't deliver it well.

Anything Tear-Jerkingly Good?: Yes. That's what's really weird about this movie: It's both very bad and very good at the same time. The little scenes there are during the sinking of the Titanic are so good. When we get away from the ridiculous romance and focus on these other people, it just this wonderful movie. That's when it's really strong. I would like to point out that Titanic is not in the list of greatest romances, but is in the list of greatest epics. I think it's clear that the American Film Institute agrees with me here. As a side note, the combination of the awesomeness of Molly Brown and the awesomeness of Kathy Bates creates an incredible center of concentrated awesome. True story.

Historical Significance: Titanic is probably the most successful movie ever made. If you don't adjust of inflation, the only movie that's ever made more money than it is Avatar. It won eleven Oscars, including Best Picture. It made huge leaps in special effects, it launched Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and it was just a huge movie. It's certainly very epic.

Historical Background: The sinking of the Titanic makes a great story all by itself. The irony of the ship that was billed with much hype as "unsinkable" sinking on it's maiden voyage is incredible. It's especially ironic because of the extent it did sink. You also have the theme of nature conquering man when he thinks he's conquered her, the warning against the dangers of overconfidence, the commentary on the class system, and the commentary on corporate greed. You can't make this kind of stuff up. It is a perfect story. It's no wonder they made a movie about it.

Framing Device?: Yes indeed. A group of undersea explorers search for "The Heart of the Ocean," an off-brand Hope Diamond, in the wreck of the Titanic, and hear the story from a survivor of the disaster, an elderly Rose.

Would I Watch it Again?: Oh, probably. If someone was like "Hey Abby, want to watch Titanic?" I'd be like, "Sure, I don't have anything else to do," but I don't think I'll ever actually seek out Titanic. 'Sokay. Definitely an enigma. Remember that. If anyone ever asks you to describe Titanic, you have to say that, okay. "It's an enigma." Good.

Epic #7 - All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

All Quiet on the Western Front is a WWI movie, directed Lewis Milestone. It's about how unglamorous and dirty and painful war is, and how it's grossly romanticized by people with no experience with it. Saving Private Ryan did show us how terrible war is, but All Quiet on the Western Front is specifically about it. It's an antiwar movie, which was really groundbreaking at the time, that wasn't how you made war movies then. It did win the Oscar for Best Picture that year, so it was successful at the time it was made and really still is, which is a long time for a movie to be well-known.

The actual literal story is about a group of young men who are inspired to enlist in the German army after hearing a rousing speech from their school teacher on the honor and glory of war. When they actually go to war, of course, they discover that it's not as glamorous as it seems from the outside. I didn't actually know there was a main character until about halfway through the movie, which says something about their characterization, but there is, his name is Paul. He's played by Lew Ayres, who apparently was quite successful later, and was decent in this movie. I can't say that I actually got very connected to any of the characters. Something about this movie made it really hard for me to follow. It also actually doesn't have any music behind it at all, which makes the quiet scenes really, really quiet, and there are a surprising amount of quiet scenes in this movie. The actors have to rely on their delivery to put emphasise on pieces of dialogue, rather than the music, and sometimes they fails, which probably contributes to my difficulty in following it.

I actually caught the movie on the Turner Classic Movies channel, which was lucky for me. I was watching a Charlie Chaplin movie I had recorded when the ad for it came on, and the movie was starting on live TV at exactly the time I was watching the recorded advertisement. I attribute this incredible coincidence to the influence of Charlie Chaplin's unquestionable knighthood.

All Quiet on the Western Front is an old movie, and it doesn't quite stand the test of time. It's very 1930s. Something about the whole thing gives of this old movie vibe. If you watch a lot of old movies you know what I'm talking about. It's just something about the way they deliver the lines. More than that though, It's not as good artistically as really any of the other movies I've watched so far. It's like they just pointed the camera at the actors and left it at that. It doesn't really look good, and in a movie, that's important. It's a very visual medium.

I know it sounds like I'm questioning the American Film Institute, but of course I'm not that's not possible. All Quiet on the Western Front is historically significant. It's the first movie to really treat war this way, which is why it ranks how it does. It's a very powerful movie, and it's got a lot of really good scenes; It's a good story. It's just not done significantly well, movie-wise. It's not that effective to watch it. The movie is based on a book, and I'll bet the book is much better. It's about how terrible war is, which is a fine and dandy message I suppose, but it's delivered rather heavy-handedly. There's just slightly too many speeches about it. They show it well enough with the events of the movie, the events are very powerful, and they don't need so many monologues about it.

It does have a very good ending though. The ending is very nice and symbolic and all that, and very famous. I'm sure you're familiar with the hand reaching out of the trenches for a butterfly? Well, that's from this movie. It's very powerful, and I can only wish that it was filmed slightly better.

As a side note, I've always inexplicably confused All Quiet on the Western Front with No Country For Old Men, and I have no idea why. They're completely unrelated movies, it's just the titles I get confused really, it's very strange. Fun Fact there.

Epic #8 - Saving Private Ryan (1998)

War is the worst thing ever. I am completely, utterly convinced of this by watching this movie. Saving Private Ryan is supposed to be among the most accurate war movies out there, and it is brutal, violent and chaotic. Just like real war. War sucks, and the people who fight it deserve all kinds of respect. Saving Private Ryan really demonstrates that.

Saving Private Ryan is a World War II movie, directed by Steven Spielberg. It opens with the invasion of Normandy on D-Day. I've been told that this is one of the best cinematic war scenes ever, and it is very good. I haven't seen very many war movies, so I can't really judge it as compared to other scenes, but on it's own it's obviously very good film making. It's this huge, crowded, chaotic scene, and it's noisy and dirty and people are dying, and within it there are all these tiny little horrible moments. People are picking up there own arms, and people are just avoiding death, and then being killed shortly afterwards. In one section, a group of medics save a soldier and congratulate themselves, only for the soldier to be shot through the head. The whole scene is filled with these kind of moments. We don't even know any characters yet. All we're watching is the warfare; that's all we have to focus on. It ends with a shot of the bodies on the beach, with the ocean with all the blood in it washing over them. It's a very powerful scene.

The Plot: Basically, three brothers from the same family, the Ryans, all die in combat. There's one brother left, Private James Ryan, and they, they being the government, decide to send him home, since all the brothers are dead. Because war isn't very organized, they don't know exactly where he is, so they send out Captain John Miller (played by Tom Hanks, who sounds distractingly like Woody in this movie,) and a squad of soldiers to find him, including Daniel Faraday from Lost. The major source of conflict in this movie is, obviously, World War II, but conflict also arises from the fact that eight men are being sent out to risk their lives for the life of one man. A huge theme in the movie is making the decision between doing the decent thing, and doing the practical thing. Saving Private Ryan is the decent thing to do, but is incredibly impractical, a lot of people are put in a lot of danger because of it. This is really what the movie is about.

This is movie is made up of definite exciting events, with calmer sort of interludes in between them. Obviously in a movie you need both exciting scenes and calm scenes, but in this movie it's very pronounced. Because this is how most action-y movies are structured, it gives the film a very action-y movie feel. It is a action-y movie of course. It's definitely a war movie, and, beyond the gritty realism, a pretty standard one, judging from the war movies I have seen. It's a very good standard war movie though. After all, the war movie is a tried and trusted genre, and this is certainly a very good movie that treats war with the dignity that it deserves. Well maybe not war itself per say, that's a tricky subject, but definitely the people who fight it. It's ground-breaking in its violent and accurate portrayal of war, and definitely summons up respect for soldiers, but beyond that it's a war movie. Now that I think about it, I have to wonder why our friends at the American Film Institute don't have a list of the best war movies. Seems like an obvious choice, over, say, the oddly specific genre of "Courtroom Drama." Strange.

Saving Private Ryan won five Oscars, including Best Director, but did not win Best Picture. It actually lost Best Picture to Shakespeare in Love, which is considered one of the greatest award snubs ever. True story.

Saving Private Ryan is, so far, the best movie I've seen through The Project, which is good because that's what's supposed to happen. The Ten Commandments was very "Look we have Technicolor and lots of extras," making it's epic-ness kind of forced, and Reds was, frankly, long and boring. Saving Private Ryan entertained me through the entire film, I enjoyed all of it, it was good film making, and it was just a good movie. It's a very powerful movie made about a very powerful subject matter. You can not question the American Film Institute. It cannot be done. I am not, however, to the point where I would actually seek out the movie to watch it again, which is a shame. Fingers crossed for All Quiet on the Western Front, then.

Epic #9 - Reds (1981)

I'm beginning to sense a pattern here.

Reds (directed by Warren Beatty) is about communism. Sort of. Reds is the true story of the radical revolutionary journalist Jack Reed (Warren Beatty), who is a jerk, and his wife Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton), who get swept up in the events of the Russian revolution, and attempt to bring the revolutionary spirit to the United States. It's epic and romantic and historic commentary, but mostly it is long. And kind of boring. Not bad, though, it's definitely a very well-made movie. It's just very, very long and uneventful.

Like The Ten Commandments, Reds is split into two parts. The first half is mostly about Jack and Louise's budding romantic relationship, an the second half is mostly about how they've gotten caught up in Bolshevism and Communism and the Russian revolution, and how this affects there lives. There's no Intermission music though, which is lame. The second half is far more interesting than the first. A whole lot of nothing happens in part 1, but part 2 is very eventful. People go to Russia, people get thrown in jail, it's very excited. They more to the seaside in part 1.

In the first half of the movie, Louise has an affair with Eugene O'Neill, the playwright (Whose son-in-law, by the way, was Charlie Chaplin, who was a knight. You can't question knighthood.) Eugene O'Neill is played by Jack Nicholson. Do you know who's creepier than Jack Nicholson? Nobody. Nobody is creepier than Jack Nicholson.

Nobody.

I wonder if Eugene O'Neill was really that sinister in really life, or if that's just Jack Nicholoson. There was a point in the movie when he was angry at Louise, an I literally thought Eugene O'Neill was going to kill her.

Stephen Sondheim, the great writer of musicals, actually did the score for this movie. I didn't actually notice the music most of the time, but there was this one song that's heavily featured in the first half of the movie, and comes to symbolize the relationship of Jack and Louise. As the movie goes on and they start movie away from this relationship, we hear this song less and less. The point in the movie where they finally get back to each other is when we hear the song again, and it's a really strong point in the movie. It's my favorite part, actually.

Do you know what there are a lot of in this movie? Montages. There is an incredibly large amount of montages in this movie. I swear there is a montage for every single major event in these people's lives. When we're not watching a montage, we're watching a series of very short, incomplete scenes, which I know sounds like a montage but isn't. A montage has music over it. This movie is made up almost entirely of scenes lasting no more than a minute or two, and montages. It's very bizarre, and I can't figure out if it's good film-making or not. Since it's the American Film Institutes's #9 epic, I'm going to assume it is, but the way this movie moves is still vaguely unsettling.

The part of the movie that isn't montages is mostly made up of people who really lived through the events of the movie, "Witnesses," summing up what's happened, introducing what happens next, and giving historical background. The historical background helps, to be honest I know very little about this point in history. This is really cool and all, and definitely interesting, but they talk for really long periods of time. The movie does a lot of telling, and not a lot of showing, which I've been told is bad. I wish we got to see more of what the main characters did.

For the most part, I'm pretty indifferent to this movie. There was nothing in it that I really disliked, but there wasn't much that I really liked, either. I sat through it, but I wouldn't necessarily want to watch it again. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that they watch it, but I wouldn't tell anyone that they should never watch it ever. It was average for me, though it's obviously a well-made movie. Good critically. Won three Oscars. Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Maureen Stapleton as revolutionary Emma Goldman), and Best Cinematography. It did have very good cinematography. Congrats, Warren Beatty.

Epic #10 - The Ten Commandments (1956)

The Ten Commandments is, first of all, a huge movie. It's directed by Cecil B. DeMille, the great director of epics, and is about, of course, Moses leading the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt, and then presenting them with the Ten Commandments, as given to him by God. Presented in brilliant Technicolor. It’s all very exciting.

The movie stars Charlton Heston as Moses and the voice of God, and Yul Brynner as Ramses II, apparently because he was tired of being the king of Siam. Vincent Price is also in it, playing, as far as I can tell, Vincent Price (He's so Vincent Price-y), and it also features Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Now, I really don’t know exactly who Cedric Hardwicke is, but I do know this: he was a knight. And therefore awesome. You can’t question knighthood, ladies and gentlemen. That’s a fact.

The Ten Commandments actually won the 1956 Oscar for special effects, which doesn't surprise me. The parting of the Red Sea is really quite impressive. Not by today's standard, of course, but nevertheless. Props, Cecil B. DeMille. Props.

The Fire Tornado is, however, far less convincing.

The Ten Commandments starts with the baby Moses (Who is actually played by Charlton Heston's son, fun fact that is), son of Hebrew slaves, being floated down the Nile in a basket to save him from Pharaoh Ramses I (Ian Keith)'s order that all first-born Hebrew sons must be killed. He floats down to the palace, or where ever it is that Egyptian royalty lives, and is saved by the Pharaoh's daughter Bithiah (Nina Foch), who raises him as his own. He then grows up in the court of Pharaoh Sethi (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), who, other than the enslavement of an entire race of people, is pretty awesome. He is loved by the throne princess, Nefretiri (I watched the entire movie and I'm still not sure how to pronounce that. She's played by Anne Baxter, who seems pretty awesome), and really kind of hated by the Pharaoh's son, Ramses II (He's Yul Brynner remember).

Eventually, Moses's Hebrew heritage is found out and he is cast out of Egypt. He crosses a desert, gets married, is spoken to by God, and then returns to Egypt. He demands that the Jewish people be set free (This is where "Let my people go," comes in). Ramses II, who is now Pharaoh, refuses, and seven plagues descend upon Egypt. Ramses II eventually set the Jewish people free, changes his mind, pursues the slaves, and looses all of his army to the Red Sea. It's an Easter classic. There's also some kind of side romance between Joshua (John Derek) and Lilia (Debra Paget) that's sort of interesting, but not really that relevant. Lilia wears a lot of color though, so it looks nice, which is always good in a movie.

It's a good movie. I was entertained by the whole thing. Mind you, it was billed as "The Greatest Event in Motion Picture History," so, bit of a letdown there, but, you know. It was big, mostly. Big acting, big sets, big story. There was always lots of people on screen, and just huge crowds of extras. It's also very long. I actually knew that it was going to be long before I watched it. This was my first clue:

Yes, Netflix sent it to me on two separate disks.

And then it began with an Overture. So I was prepared. It didn't actually seem to drag at all though, I was engaged throughout the whole thing. It was very entertaining, although I was kind of hoping that Charlton Heston would say "Let my people go!" more often then he actually did. Oh well. It certainly deserves the #10 slot in the Best Epics Ever, at least so far, which just goes to reinforce the American Film Institutes complete trustworthiness.

So it is written, so it shall be done.

That's how the movie ends, see. I thought it was clever. Perhaps a bit abrupt.

Genre #1: Epics

I'll admit, I always sort of thought that an epic had to be a poem. Evidently this is not true.
I also thought that an epic had to be about something specifically heroic, like a war, or a quest or something. An epic, to my knowlege, has to be very, very long.

And ships. I feel there should be ships.

However, Titanic, for an example, is on this list. Mind you, a ship is heavily featured in Titanic, but I've never noticed anything particularly heroic about it. But the American Film Institute has, and the American Film Institue is never wrong. Clearly, I don't know exactly what an epic is.

I asked Dictionary.com for a strait definition of the word. Among the first couple of definitions, Dictionary.com assured me that an epic was "an epic poem," "epic poetry," or "something worthy to form the subject of an epic," which was less than helpful. After some further digging,
"Any work of literature, film, etc, having heroic deeds for its subject matter or having other qualities associated with the epic," came up, which was much more helpful, although still a bit vague toward the end. This is about what I said earlier, but without the ships.

Interesting.

First up: The Ten Commandments.