Only twelve? Because you know, I could easily double or triple the list… okay, I’ll stop now.
There are a handful of films that I’m proud to say I’ve seen (8½, El Topo, Citizen Kane and nearly all the David Lynch movies), but countless more that I’ve yet to. Like fellow Shamer @007hertzrumble, this could be a by-product of my preoccupation with the James Bond franchise; I’ve revisited films like GoldenEye numerous times and can nearly quote it word-for-word. Highly acclaimed classics like Seven Samurai or Lawrence of Arabia don’t give me quite the same level of gratification that I get from watching Roger Moore raise his eyebrows, but it’s the classics that ultimately teach us more about the craft of visual storytelling. And I am very guilty of skipping a few.
On to the list:
January: Oldboy (dir. Park Chan-wook)
February: 2001: A Space Odyssey (dir. Stanley Kubrick)
March: Rear Window (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
April: Fargo (dir. Joel & Ethan Coen)
May: Annie Hall (dir. Woody Allen)
June: Fight Club (dir. David Fincher)
July: Taxi Driver (dir. Martin Scorsese)
August: Apocalypse Now (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
September: Repulsion (dir. Roman Polanski)
October: Wait Until Dark (dir. Terence Young)
November: The French Connection (dir. William Friedkin)
December: La Dolce Vita (dir. Frederico Fellini)
Aside from a few criteria, i.e. choosing twelve films that interest me, as well as choosing one film per director, there isn’t much of a unifying theme here. Films I’ve enjoyed the most tend to deal with notions of masculinity, or a subversion of masculinity, so there may be a few of those here. Overall this was a tough list to make and I’m sure I forgot to include a few essentials.
Let the penitence commence!
Cinema Shame 