The best film ever made

Citizen Kane, it's almost certainly not the best film ever made, yet it consistently appears at the top in best film polls, most notably the Sight and Sound critic and film professional poll. Don't get me wrong it's a pretty good film, just nowhere near best, probably not even in the top 20%, let's face it, it's not even Orson Welles's best film. So why does it garner such a conspicuous level of constant admiration? Well, I'm going to suggest that, it's largely a case of the emperors new cloths, in that the weight of opinion in favour of the film has too strong an authority, too great a provenance, for a lot of people to run the risk of appearing naive by stating the obvious, that is: it's a bit pointless. Pretty harsh appraisal of the film I know but it succinctly sums up the films weakness. In case you didn't already know, Citizen Kane is a thinly disguised character assassination of William Randolf Hurst, the one time media magnate and progenitor of the phenomenon known as yellow journalism. As such. when it was made, it quite an audacious project, Hurst had far more influence and had a longer reach than any contemporary media mogul. That's essentially the problem with the film though, it's relevance as a commentary is too specific to the era it was made and has little relevance in a general context, in other words, it'd dated and -- a bit pointless. This doesn't mean that I don't appreciate Welles as a talent, I pretty sure he was an extraordinary dramatist, maybe his talents were exercised too far in the direction of self promotion but hey that's better than starving in obscurity.

So what is the best ever film? There isn't a best ever of course, and such is true in every field of human endeavour. If there was such a thing, it would probably be obscure and eclectic, something you'd never see, like a drama concerning the story of a blind zither virtuoso who earned his living playing at drive in weddings in Las Vegas. So is it all down to a matter of personal taste, you know, some people like Transformers, others like The Color Purple? Well that's not really true either, like it or not, we're influenced by our peers on a more fundamental level than most of us probably realize. Most of us probably have had the odd occasion when we've enjoyed a film, book or TV show but felt a certain reticence in expressing our appreciation in certain contexts. Say you went to see Cats and had a great time, you wouldn't neccessarily relay that experience to the Millwall supporters that inhabit your local would you. Or maybe you particularly enjoyed Rambo - First Blood 2, the boys at the poetry reading circle may not be that impressed with your enthusiasm for such. Well such social pressure can and does influence your actual appreciation as well as your willingness to express it and it's easily provable, although a lot people, especially those with an exaggerated view of their independence of thought, will continue to deny it. It's one of a group of phenomenon that influence your appreciation and critical faculty in many ways, some subtle other not so, that I call barriers.

I've mentioned barriers before but lets re-iterate my definition: barriers are essentially attitudes that you bring to any experience, in this context, those experiences concern the appreciation of artistic expression but you could equally apply the concept to other experiences. For example, you probably wouldn't  ride a roller coaster named, Sudden Death Cascade, if you suffered a chronic fear of heights. Such phobias can present a strong barrier to artistic appreciation. I do recall one instance when a cinema goer had to be convinced to stay seated and not walk out during a showing of The Living Daylights. The sight of TImothy Dalton's stunt man hanging out the back of an aeroplane and flapping around hanging by a seemingly tenuous thread was too much for him. In this context though, barriers tend to be related more to socially acquired attitudes. Barriers can be manifested by all sorts of attitudes, they can be related to religion or similar ideologies, personal preferences, social or cultural stigma, politics anything really that can encourage you into preconception. To illustrate lets examine, Triumph of the Will a notorious film directed by Leni Riefenstahl, for those who don't know it, it's a German film documenting the 1934 Nazi party congress in Nuremberg. The first part of the film is the most interesting from a cinematic and historical perspective, the later part although quite innovative in technique, is just too mind numbingly tedious for any one who isn't dedicated national socialist to watch in one sitting. On the occasions I've watched this film, the cinematography has impressed me but I'm always prompted into sadness by the knowledge that many of the happy faces, the children waving their hankies and their ecstatic mothers will suffer a terrible fate along with the many unseen faces in the coming catastrophe. You see, I'm bringing a context to the film, my acquired knowledge of subsequent events. Now imagine how much more acute that reaction would be if I were someone who'd lived through that era, lost relatives, loved ones, neighbours or friends in the conflict. Somehow I can't see such a person, appreciating the subtle juxtaposition brought about through  editing or the framing of certain shots.

Perceptual filters, now these are really interesting, they're related to barriers in that they're most often realised through socially acquired means, the very same ones that barriers are so often manifested through. In fact there is some overlap between barriers and perceptual filters and the two concepts are separate but not explicitly delineated. The key difference between the two is that a perceptual filter will alter how you interpret and perceive an experience so that you will perceive thing in a distorted manner. That is, have an exaggerated perception of certain aspects of a work or perceive aspects that don't actually exist within the actual work at all. This can be manifested as simple misinterpretation, the obvious example is that someone who watches The Dambusters may perceive that the name of the dog represents certain attitudes expressed in the film. The surprising thing is that perceptual filters are not limited to misinterpretation, in fact they're most often manifested as complete fabrications, that is people see and hear things, or rather recall such when prompted, that don't happen. A good example of this was demonstrated with, Planet of Perils the first episode in the 1934 Flash Gordon Serial. When asked to comment on the portrayal of Dale Arden, the female lead character, it's common for commentators to stress her passive role within the drama and her dependence on the male lead character, Flash Gordon to continually extradite her from peril prompted by her continual cries of "Oh Flash". This perception is consistent with contemporary attitudes towards gender types in popular action orientated drama from that era. However it is somewhat at odds with the on screen reality and indeed the social reality of that era. In fact the Dale Arden character is never placed in serious peril in this episode, quite the contrary, the Flash Gordon character is the one facing danger and it is Arden who offers him moral support. The two instance where Arden does cry out are prompted by concern for her male compatriot and not by stereotypical hysteria, this discrepancy is best summarized by the perceptual filter concept. One thing that distinguishes perceptual filters is that we're not universally vulnerable to them on nearly like the same scale as we are barriers, virtually everyone has barriers but you have to be slightly wrong in the head to be persistently subject to perceptual filters, that's not to say that were not all a little weak minded on occasion or that there aren't a lot of people soft in the head most of the time either.

There you go, those are some of the reasons why the label, the best film ever made, is something you shouldn't take too seriously, On the other the hand, Conan The Barbarian, directed by John Millius, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is, the best film ever made.

War

A few years ago some sort effort to remake The Dambusters was launched with quite a lot of attendant publicity. Of course a major focus for attention in the press was the thorny subject of Guy Gibson's dog who's name is subject to an unfortunate taboo that has arisen since the original film was released. My solution to the problem was rather simple, just make him a Greyhound and call him Racey, then you have one of the characters drop a line some along the lines of, "He always running somewhere, he is the raciest dog I've known". A solution unlikely to see fruition unfortunately not least because film makers today are too prosaic but mostly because those who've acquired the rights have decided to adopt the simper solution of not actually making the film. I think they started shooting some stuff with Lancaster mock ups but that's about all I've heard about it for a few years.

Another war time raid around which there was rumoured to be a film in production was the St. Nazaire raid. Operation Chariot, as it is also known as, offers some meaty material for any filmaker, the bare facts of the events surrounding the operation read like a screenplay but I'm sure that wouldn't prevent the odd fantasy embellishments that the film industry is so fond of. It's no surprise then that Operation Chariot has fuelled at least two cinematic dramatisations: The Gift Horse and Attack on the Iron Coast. Unfortunately neither of these films do the topic justice and  both of them just use Operation Chariot for plot elements rather than being authentic dramatisations of the raid itself. Alas this project seems to have disappeared as well, which is a real shame, I'd pay to see a decent dramatisation of that raid. I suppose one of the problems the raid represents is that the drama is already intrinsic to the historical events, so it represents a kind of affront to the Hollywood mindset. The same mindset that produced that god awful abortion Pearl Harbour, perhaps it's just as well that neither of these films will get made afterall.

Went the day well?

Many years ago and I really do mean many I spent some time as an inmate in a children's ward, I was probably about five years old, there you are that's how long ago it was. It's a period in my life which I obviously recollect imperfectly but the images that remain are some of my most potent memories. One of them is the haunting sight of the children in the glass rooms, this was a period when the thalidomide legacy was still unfolding so you can imagine the effect of the uncensored reality within these isolation wards would have on the young minds gawking aghast with their noses pressed against the windows. There are other memories: wearing a toy Indian head dress while confined to bed, finding a kaleidoscope in the toy box, making a break for freedom only to be a hunted down by a nurse, being told to stay still and watch the birdy on those chilly morning trips to the other place, the nun who asked me about Jesus and Mary and gave a fist full of St. Christopher, waking up one morning to find my self in one of those glass rooms.

To accompany this fuel to feed the engines of imagination is a memory of the first film I remember seeing, shown on the ward Tele. Went the Day Well was produced as a propaganda effort in WW2. The film actually works very well as a drama, in fact certain elements of if have been recycled more than once, most notably in Jack HIggins's The Eagle has Landed. Which features a plot derived from Went the Day Well, that is, a village being infiltrated by Germans disguised as friendly troops and a climax that features a siege that takes place inside a church. One memory of the film that sticks with me, is what I call the German seven scene, it's where the disguised German officer arouses suspicion by crossing his seven while writing a note. It's funny how such a memory can linger and influence your feelings, I always shudder when I see people do that today and I often wonder if the other kids in the ward who watched the film that night feel the same way. On a less personal level the film is noteworthy because although it's an obvious exercise in propaganda it's an unusual piece of cinema in that it's quite sophisticated as a narrative but it was made before the narrative conventions in mainstream cinema solidified after the war and as such represents an interesting social document.

One aspect of this is the role women play in the film there are a number rounded female characters with fully active volition, so active in fact that it is often violent and occasionally fatal, one such instance is the famous pepper scene. There are also a number ancillary female parts that depict a range of human attributes both positive and negative in quite a realistic way, That's an aspect of mainstream drama that suffered quite notably after the war, there are exceptions, probably I would cite Patrica Neal's role in The Day the Earth Stood Still and maybe a few others but even these tend to be one sided, focusing on the positive. Another related aspect of the film that is really quite extraordinary for a propaganda flick, is the of independence with which the protagonists exercise their own volition. That would be totally verboten today, if you'll excuse the play on words, in recent years a much greater emphasis on dependence has arisen in modern drama. Characters portrayed risking their lives pro-actively, driving the narrative not just reacting to it, are heroic archetypes not realistic portrayals of ordinary people. For that reasons modern film looks rather pale in comparison to Went the Day Well.

The major problem with mainstream film drama is the attention it garners from the would be censors, the guardians of morality and taste. For them everything has to be a morality tale, how many times have you heard, xyz portrayed somewhere will encourage some kind antisocial behaviour? quite a lot I imagine. Printed media doesn't get nearly so much attention although it doesn't escape completely, Seduction of the Innocent proves that point but on the whole it's gotten away with being a lot more rounded, interesting, reflecting reality and real people to greater degree than cinema, although that has diminished too in recent decades. There were no outraged newspapers calling for the banning of Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange but it was a different story when Kubrick made his film. As I mentioned I feel this normalization of cinematic drama grew incrementally after the war, step by it step it ate away veracity til today we're in the state where a propaganda film produced in the time war contains more realism than the fair we get today, in what is supposed to be a free world. When Jason Isaacs was prompted to defend the trivial characters in the Mel Gibson vehicle The Patriot, he said he thought that depicting the hero as a slave owner would send the wrong message. No one has epitomized the problem so succinctly, thanks Mr. Isaacs.