You know, it's kind of funny how this list sometimes organizes itself into thematic clumps. Last time it was the '70s, and now this time, just in time to wash that auteur aftertaste from your mouth, it's blockbuster entertainment. I'm easily amused, I guess.
Okay, so it's a bit of an anachronism to call this movie a blockbuster, considering that it predates the blockbuster era (heralded by none other than the next entry on this list!) by a solid fourteen years. But outside of the realm of B-movies and maybe King Kong, I can't think of few pre-Jaws films that better embody the principles of that later era than North by Northwest. It's all here: the setpieces, the quick pace, the emotional remove, the violence, the wit (both verbal and visual), etc. North by Northwest is one monumentally[1] fun movie, which is something I think I'm going to be saying a lot about the films in this entry. It also ranks right up there with It Happened One Night among surprisingly dirty movies from the censorship era, though North by Northwest is more content to relegate the dirtiness to visual metaphors rather than the more literally minded sexual tension of that earlier Capra flick. That being said, a lot of those moments are so cheeky that they're just barely metaphorical, and that shot of the train entering the tunnel is as least as unsubtle as the falling curtain at the end of Capra's film (not to mention more anatomically informative). Overall, it's maybe a little too frothy and smug for me to include it in my shortlist of favorite Hitchcocks, but don't let that discourage you from seeing it if you haven't already. It's a blast.
I've never really agreed with the people who call Jaws a horror movie. I mean, to be sure, it's full of things that are horrifying, mostly munching shark things like that monster in the poster. But it's not really a movie that is horrifying as a whole. And again, sure, there are plenty of moments that are scary (the image of Quint sliding down the boat into the shark's mouth is about as scary as they come). But it's not really a "scary movie." I dunno, maybe if I went to the beach right after watching Jaws, I'd feel differently. Or maybe I'm just cynical. But seriously, if I had to classify Jaws into a genre, I'd call it a thriller. That might seem like a nitpicking distinction to make, and I usually shy away from genre disputes anyway. In this case, though, I think it's an important line to draw, and here's why: horror is not, for the most part, about human beings, whereas thrillers most definitely are. If I may generalize for a moment, horror movies are about the sublime terror of the things beyond the scope of the mundane human experience—Cthulhu, Freddy Krueger, the Wolf Man, Satan; even those horror movies with human antagonists usually go to great lengths to dehumanize those villains, either visually (think hockey masks) or psychologically (think of the Otherness of Psycho's Norman Bates once the extent of his identity is revealed). It's not about humanity but about something huge and evil beyond us. Thrillers tend to be just the opposite, where the focus is on the human pieces of the story. Thrillers are about the Individual, and they often tell stories of humans with agency in their struggles—North by Northwest, to stay within the range of the AFI list. The antagonists are important, yes, but unlike horror films, thrillers position their protagonists as equally important to the narrative as (or even more important than) the villains. I realize that I'm inventing definitions that suit my argumentative purposes, but I really do think this is an important point to address with Jaws. Classifying Jaws as a horror movie puts the emphasis on the shark. And don't get me wrong, the shark is scary and cool and important, and the movie wouldn't work without it. As I see it, though, this isn't strictly the shark's story; it's Brody's. This is a movie about how this man responds to trauma, how he decides to fulfill his role in society in a crisis, how human resourcefulness (often his) "beats" nature. It's of course not boring and academic like I've just described it, because yes, there is a big, fat, literally scene-chewing killer shark on the loose. But I do think it's important where we direct our focus with this movie, and if it's only on the shark, we're missing out on a whole lot of other things Jaws has to offer. There's much more I want to say about this movie, but golly, this entry is running long. Maybe I'll blog about it more later. For now, though, moving right along...
O Rocky. Poor Rocky. Of all the films on this list, Rocky may be the one whose stock has plummeted most since its release, give or take the look-at-these-shiny-happy-slaves Gone with the Wind. And almost none of that depreciation is the fault of the film itself, which is something you can't say about Gone with the Wind and its racism. Firstly, there's circumstantial misfortunes like its performance in the Academy Awards, where it won Best Picture over critical heavyweights like Taxi Driver and Network, forever dooming it to a reputation among film buffs as a movie indicative of the milquetoast taste of the Academy[3]. I don't subscribe to this point of view because 1. I like Rocky more than Taxi Driver anyway, and 2. I've never really gotten how the arguably poor decisions of a third party could affect the quality of the works they give awards to. Secondly (and this is probably the main problem Rocky faces with audiences nowadays), Rocky is one of those unfortunate movies cursed with way more sequels than it ever needed. The plethora of sequels is an absolute death knell for this movie's underdog spirit because it transforms Rocky from an endearingly scrappy upstart of a film into an Institution, and not just any institution but a fat, cheesy, even jingoistic institution often entirely at odds with the original film, one of those too-big-to-fail Hollywood Institutions that studios throw money into every decade just because they can (see also: RoboCop). All of that is just a crying shame, because Rocky really is a great little movie, with particular emphasis on the "little." I can't stress how much of the charm of this movie is banked on how small and personal everything feels, with Stallone's Rocky living one of those Bruce-Springsteen-Character lives that's impossible not to get invested in once the movie gives space to develop the minutiae of its day-to-day grind. Rocky's success in life really does feel like, as the tagline says, "a million-to-one shot," and not in an exploitative way that turns the mice in Rocky's apartment into stallions or anything but in a way that feels grounded in character and setting, not movie magic. That works on a meta level, too. Rocky is so ubiquitous now that it's easy to ignore that originally, the life of the movie itself was a million-to-one shot. Not only was it a low-budget production overseen by a mostly unknown actor whose major claim to fame by the mid-'70s was a starring role in a porno flick, the film was sentimental and optimistic in a decade of American cinema that was determined to be anything but. Oh, and lest this point get lost in all my blathering, let me say this once and for all: it's also a monumentally[4] fun movie.
As always, I'd love to hear what you think. Feel free to stomp all over my genre definitions, my low placement of North by Northwest in Hitchcock's filmography, my defense of Rocky (or my dislike of its sequels) or anything else you'd like to stomp on. And, you know, you could be positive and stuff, too. It's whatever. Until next time!
You can read the previous post in the series, #s 52-54, here.
Update: You can read the next entry, #s 58-60, here.
1] Literally monumental, given that its climax occurs on the face of Mt. Rushmore. *rimshot*
2] I can't tell you how intimidating it is to write about this movie. Not only is it one of the most adored movies ever (and one of my personal favorites), but it's also been the subject of this week's "Movie of the Week" discussions over at one of my favorite film websites, The Dissolve (today's roundtable was a particularly great piece on some of the less talked-about aspects of the film). No chance I'm going to give you a better analysis than the Dissolve staff's. Apologies.
3] This is depressingly common when it comes to people talking about Academy Award winners. Other perfectly fine movies whose reputations became sullied after they won Best Picture over more critically acclaimed films: Shakespeare in Love, The King's Speech, Kramer vs. Kramer, Argo, Driving Miss Daisy, How Green Was My Valley, etc., etc.
4] Again, literally monumental, what with Rocky running up the iconic front steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. I must be butter, 'cause I'm on a roll.
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