The Killing
Stanley Kubrick
It's always difficult to choose just five films for a list of your favourite all-time classics from Hollywood and World Cinema. All the more to just select one Kubrick film. I am going with The Killing (1956) not just because Kubrick made it when he was 27 and played around with structure but because without The Killing, there would be no Reservoir Dogs and no Quentin Tarantino. If The Killing showed us what went wrong between five men who planned a robbery, Reservoir Dogs was a stylistic take of the aftermath of the robbery… only that Tarantino decided that he wouldn't show you the actual robbery since Kubrick had already done it.
Pyaasa
Guru Dutt
For celebrating the artist. Pyaasa (1957) is one of the best original Indian commercial films to have ever been made. It proved that a film could completely shun formula and work purely on the merit of the art. Pyaasa captured the angst of a poet with its haunting frames and unforgettable music (S.D. Burman). For a film made at a period when Indian cinema still celebrated melodrama, Pyaasa was a breath of fresh air, surprisingly restrained despite the tragic situations.
The Apartment
Billy Wilder
Though it's tempting to pick a Wilder film with Marilyn Monroe in it (The Seven Year Itch for braving the moral brigade or Some like it Hot for featuring one of the best kisses ever) or his earlier noir classics (Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard), I am going with The Apartment (1960) for being the most Wilder-esque. Not only does it feature one of his regulars Jack Lemmon (Wilder cast him in seven of his films), it also gave us one of the most unforgettable women characters in Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) and has everything we've come to associate with Wilder. The Apartment was not just funny, it was heartbreakingly romantic and proved that films with great writing always work.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Sergio Leone
It may not be the best Western ever made but this spaghetti Western will be remembered for more than a reason — as the spectacular finale to the Dollars trilogy, for that goose bumps inducing score by Ennio Morricone and one of the most memorable Mexican stand-off finales but I pick this purely because of Sergio Leone's undying love for the genre, style and the world of cowboys. The film made in 1966 bridges the past (Lee Van Cleef was a henchman in High Noon and in The Man Who shot Liberty Valance) and the future of the Western (Clint Eastwood). Eastwood after this, went on to change his boots but retained the heart of the gun-slinging cowboy in his Dirty Harry films and, all the way till Gran Torino.
Star Wars
George Lucas
This one goes out to fellow geeks. Steven Spielberg and James Cameron sure wouldn't mind Lucas for taking this slot. George Lucas started Industrial Light and Magic to make Star Wars (1977) and it was the beginning of sci-fi fun at the movies (many Star Trek films used ILM facilities too, so stop abusing me in Klingon and give us Star Wars fans that Vulcan salute). After Star Wars, movies were never quite the same again.
Those that almost made it:
Casablanca: Michael Curtiz
12 Angry Men: Sidney Lumet
High Noon: Fred Zinnemann
The Godfather: Francis Ford Coppola
Mean Streets: Directed by Martin Scorsese
Annie Hall: Woody Allen
(Sudhish Kamath is special correspondent with The Hindu, a film critic and an independent filmmaker.)
