About 10 years ago I got this book.
I don't remember exactly how it came to my family, but I would bet money that we scooped it up from the bargain bin at Borders (RIP) and bought it on impulse.
When I moved out of my parents' house, I took the book with me. I've bought other movie books over the years, but I always come back to this one because I like the reviews in it so much. I spent so many hours looking at it in college that my friends got to know it too and years later my roommate Annie mentioned how often I pulled it out during hangouts at our apartment. At some point I went through and highlighted the names of the movies I'd seen, and for a couple years I passively watched others on the list. I only watched the ones I thought I would like and ignored the rest.
Recently I started reading more about film history and realized that for a young person (born in the late 1980s) who has never studied film in any formal way and has no involvement in the industry, I got decent exposure to films from the Classic Era just from growing up with my dad in the house. There used to be a family-owned video store down the street from where we lived that inexplicably had a fantastic collection of old movies and rentals were only $1. During the summer months, we would watch a movie almost every day. My dad would make a suggestion about something he had seen as a kid, and then I'd run up to the store and get it and we'd watch it. When I got to be middle-school age, a Blockbuster opened in town and rang the first death knell for this amazing family-owned video store. My life was never the same after that point. To say Blockbuster's selection pales in comparison is an understatement.
I have always liked hearing my dad's stories about the first time he saw something really memorable because they seemed so different from my own movie-going experiences. I never got to experience watching Star Wars for the first time on a big screen, but I could live vicariously through his memory of having done so. Dad's movie-going experiences seemed so much more mind-blowing than my own. I grew up in the age of CGI, where the most frequent debate is whether or not special effects look "realistic" enough. (Never mind that they often show things that could never happen in real life.) In contrast to that, my dad would often say about classic movies "Oh, you gotta see this on a big screen!" and tell me how magical it was seeing something for the first time in a theater. I always felt a twinge of jealousy when he would relate these stories. He grew up in Chicago during a time in which you could take the L to the movie theater; buy a movie ticket, a soda, and popcorn; and take the train home again, all for less than $1.
For the most part, I liked the movies my dad showed me. Some of them I could relate to better than others. I remember the time he raved on and on about how brilliant American Graffiti was, and then when I watched it just seemed like a movie about kids driving around in cars. I didn't get it at the time why he likes it so much, but I understand now - it captures the feel of growing up in 1960s America that my dad remembers. It's something I will never be able to experience myself and can only try to understand by living vicariously through the memories of others.
I have tons more stories about movies and my dad, but I'll save them for later down the road. Which brings me to....
THE PROJECT
Pondering all these things led me to a crazy idea. What if I watched all the 1001 movies listed in the book in chronological order? Up until now I'd just cherry-picked and watched the ones I thought I would like, but that was giving me an incomplete picture of movie history. If I went back to the beginning and watched the movies in order, it'd give me a better picture of how film developed from its infant stage to become an art form and then the universal life force that it is now.
Granted, I'm still only watching a fraction of the movies out there. But 1001 movies is no small feat and it will at least be a significant sampling of the artistic achievements made up until now.
So I went out and bought the most recent copy of the book I could find, the 7th edition that lists movies through 2010.
So that's my quest. To watch all 1001 movies, in order, and blog about it so I have a record. If you do the math, averaging one movie per week will make this project approximately 20 years long. I'm going to do my best and watch more than one movie per week so I can get it done a little quicker.
But there is one problem. Since the book is based around a finite number (1001) this means that with every subsequent edition, new movies are added and a few have to be deleted. If I want to do a complete job with this project, I'll have to watch all the movies that have been listed in every edition. So I'm actually going to watch more than 1001 movies. That is, if I don't die or give up before completing this project.
This is by no means intended to be a solitary journey. There are lots of movies on the list that I probably won't be able to sit through unless I have someone else there with me. To that end, a few people have already signed on to walk with me for part of it. My dad will probably join me for everything by Kurosawa and all the war movies. For scary movies (not my fave genre....), I have other friends I am counting on to anchor me down to the couch.
This is a crazy-ambitious project, but I'm hoping it will be fun and I will come out of it knowing a lot of interesting things. The list of movies is posted on other blogs, if you'd care to see. You are welcome to join me on some or all of this quest.
Here we go.
I don't remember exactly how it came to my family, but I would bet money that we scooped it up from the bargain bin at Borders (RIP) and bought it on impulse.
When I moved out of my parents' house, I took the book with me. I've bought other movie books over the years, but I always come back to this one because I like the reviews in it so much. I spent so many hours looking at it in college that my friends got to know it too and years later my roommate Annie mentioned how often I pulled it out during hangouts at our apartment. At some point I went through and highlighted the names of the movies I'd seen, and for a couple years I passively watched others on the list. I only watched the ones I thought I would like and ignored the rest.
Recently I started reading more about film history and realized that for a young person (born in the late 1980s) who has never studied film in any formal way and has no involvement in the industry, I got decent exposure to films from the Classic Era just from growing up with my dad in the house. There used to be a family-owned video store down the street from where we lived that inexplicably had a fantastic collection of old movies and rentals were only $1. During the summer months, we would watch a movie almost every day. My dad would make a suggestion about something he had seen as a kid, and then I'd run up to the store and get it and we'd watch it. When I got to be middle-school age, a Blockbuster opened in town and rang the first death knell for this amazing family-owned video store. My life was never the same after that point. To say Blockbuster's selection pales in comparison is an understatement.
I have always liked hearing my dad's stories about the first time he saw something really memorable because they seemed so different from my own movie-going experiences. I never got to experience watching Star Wars for the first time on a big screen, but I could live vicariously through his memory of having done so. Dad's movie-going experiences seemed so much more mind-blowing than my own. I grew up in the age of CGI, where the most frequent debate is whether or not special effects look "realistic" enough. (Never mind that they often show things that could never happen in real life.) In contrast to that, my dad would often say about classic movies "Oh, you gotta see this on a big screen!" and tell me how magical it was seeing something for the first time in a theater. I always felt a twinge of jealousy when he would relate these stories. He grew up in Chicago during a time in which you could take the L to the movie theater; buy a movie ticket, a soda, and popcorn; and take the train home again, all for less than $1.
For the most part, I liked the movies my dad showed me. Some of them I could relate to better than others. I remember the time he raved on and on about how brilliant American Graffiti was, and then when I watched it just seemed like a movie about kids driving around in cars. I didn't get it at the time why he likes it so much, but I understand now - it captures the feel of growing up in 1960s America that my dad remembers. It's something I will never be able to experience myself and can only try to understand by living vicariously through the memories of others.
I have tons more stories about movies and my dad, but I'll save them for later down the road. Which brings me to....
THE PROJECT
Pondering all these things led me to a crazy idea. What if I watched all the 1001 movies listed in the book in chronological order? Up until now I'd just cherry-picked and watched the ones I thought I would like, but that was giving me an incomplete picture of movie history. If I went back to the beginning and watched the movies in order, it'd give me a better picture of how film developed from its infant stage to become an art form and then the universal life force that it is now.
Granted, I'm still only watching a fraction of the movies out there. But 1001 movies is no small feat and it will at least be a significant sampling of the artistic achievements made up until now.
So I went out and bought the most recent copy of the book I could find, the 7th edition that lists movies through 2010.
So that's my quest. To watch all 1001 movies, in order, and blog about it so I have a record. If you do the math, averaging one movie per week will make this project approximately 20 years long. I'm going to do my best and watch more than one movie per week so I can get it done a little quicker.
But there is one problem. Since the book is based around a finite number (1001) this means that with every subsequent edition, new movies are added and a few have to be deleted. If I want to do a complete job with this project, I'll have to watch all the movies that have been listed in every edition. So I'm actually going to watch more than 1001 movies. That is, if I don't die or give up before completing this project.
This is by no means intended to be a solitary journey. There are lots of movies on the list that I probably won't be able to sit through unless I have someone else there with me. To that end, a few people have already signed on to walk with me for part of it. My dad will probably join me for everything by Kurosawa and all the war movies. For scary movies (not my fave genre....), I have other friends I am counting on to anchor me down to the couch.
This is a crazy-ambitious project, but I'm hoping it will be fun and I will come out of it knowing a lot of interesting things. The list of movies is posted on other blogs, if you'd care to see. You are welcome to join me on some or all of this quest.
Here we go.
Great undertaking-- but there better be some Preston Sturges films on the list, or else I'll raise holy hell with the editors of the book.
ReplyDeleteThere are three on the list - The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, and The Palm Beach Story.
DeleteI'll post the entire list soon so you can express sufficient outrage or delight at the films included.
Welcome!
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like your experience with the book starts out similar to mine. I bought that first year's copy, but never actively picked movies out of it to watch. Instead, I would flip through it a few times a year and check off the ones I had seen and then read the entries (I learned the hard way that most of them contain spoilers).
Almost a year ago now I decided to actively start working on the list and soon found that some of the entries can be quite hard to find. I maintain a wiki with links for the entries that are not available via Netflix. If you get stuck, you can find it here:
http://1001films.wikia.com/wiki/1001_Movies_You_Must_See_Before_You_Die_Wiki
There is also a group of bloggers working on the list that submit reviews of a selected film to a common site each week. If, when you get further along, you think you'd like to get involved, please let me know. Even though I include some films other than the ones in the 1,001 list, and I don't review entries from it if I would not recommend them, I still submit reviews to this common site from time to time. I also maintain a Label at my blog ("Movies - 1001 Movies") for the folks doing this so they can go directly to my reviews of the entries from the list.
Chip, thanks for giving me your link where I can find alternate names for the movies. I'm anticipating that, besides the patience required to watch all the movies, finding the more obscure ones will be my biggest challenge in the project. I'll let you know if I write some more formal reviews that I'd like to contribute to the site!
DeleteFYI - there's no level of formality for the reviews submitted. They range anywhere from full reviews to a couple bloggers who only write 3-4 sentences on a film. I'll go ahead and give you the link now so you can check it out, if you are interested.
Deletehttp://www.filmsquish.com/guts/?q=node/4577
At the bottom are archive links to past reviews. You will see links for entries 1, 2, and 4. They will show you examples of what people have submitted. You aren't restricted to writing reviews only for the newly selected entries; you can submit your own reviews for the archived entries. I did when I first joined.