And behind door number 22... a guide to some music of the more traditional kind
Catherine Munn and Jacob Martin list their Top 5 programmes to watch over the festive period.
And behind door number nine... some dazzling musical delights
The complete arts guide, for week 9
But the main reason I’m most annoyed about my date of birth is that I have missed out on seeing most of the twentieth-century’s classic films on the big screen. I might have been able to watch Schindler’s List, The Lion King and The Usual Suspects, but my housemates and I were hard pressed to think of many more. As one of them said, “We just don’t make classics anymore.”
Maybe I’m being a bit harsh; the reason that films such as Casablanca, Some Like It Hot and 12 Angry Men are regarded as classics is because they have stood the test of time. Films made in the ‘90s haven’t been allowed quite enough time to become their own cultural landmarks, to become points of comparison for modern films. However if you look at the American Film Institute’s Top 20 films, you’ll only find one entry that was released after 1975, and that’s Schindler’s List.
I have a list of films that, as a film-lover, I ought to have seen, films so ingrained in the public consciousness that by not seeing them I feel I am denied access to a huge part of the world’s cultural library. Films such as One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Godfather, and the film that is so revered it is almost intimidating – Citizen Kane. Unfortunately the only part I have seen of The Godfather is when I walked in on the horse’s-head-in-the-bed scene. Needless to say, being quite young, it put me off. And yet I know that I can’t really call myself a film-lover if I haven’t watched these films.
Sure, I can tell you all about who is in them, who directed them, significant moments in the film and their main themes, but reading about them is certainly no substitute for actually watching them. And it’s my own fault – most of the time I spend watching crap TV shows could be spent educating myself in the best the film industry has to offer.
If I could have chosen, 1920 seems like a good year in which to be born. Then I could have grown up in the so-called ‘golden era’ of Hollywood films, and been around for all the masterpieces that were to come in the subsequent decades. I suppose I’ll have to continue working my way through that ever-growing DVD rental list. LoveFilm must love me...
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