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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us March 18, 2006 The magic ... it’s what films are about By Chris Honore Tidings Correspondent Best Films Of The Last 75 Years So many remarkable movies have been made over the last seven decades that it is all but impossible to pick a top 10 or even 25. The body of work produced by Hollywood (and others) is so extensive, that to construct a list of the best is all but impossible. Here are a few Tidings picks, in order of release, but still just the tip of the iceberg. • It Happened One Night (1934). Directed by Frank Capra. • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Directed by Ben Sharpsteen • Stage Coach (1939). Directed by John Ford. • Gone With the Wind (1939). Directed by Victor Fleming. • The Wizard of Oz (1939). Directed by Victor Fleming. • Citizen Kane (1941). Directed by Orson Welles. • The Maltese Falcon (1941). Directed by John Huston. • Casablanca (1942). Directed by Michael Curtiz • Double Indemnity (1944). Directed by Billy Wilder • It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Directed by Frank Capra • The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Directed by William Wyler • Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Directed by John Huston. • Sunset Boulevard (1950). Directed by Billy Wilder. • The Quiet Man (1952). Directed by John Ford • High Noon (1952). Directed by Fred Zimmerman. • Rear Window (1954). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. • On the Waterfront (1954). Directed by Elia Kazan • The Searchers (1956). Directed by John Ford. • Vertigo (1958). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. • North by Northwest (1959). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. • Some Like it Hot (1959). Directed by Billy Wilder • Psycho (1960). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. • Dr. Strangelove (1964). Directed by Stanley Kubrick. • The Graduate (1967). Directed by Mike Nichols. • Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Directed by Arthur Penn. • 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Directed by Stanley Kubrick. • Midnight Cowboy (1969). Directed by John Schlesinger. • The Godfather (the trilogy). Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. • Jaws (1975). Directed by Steven Spielbeg. • Taxi Driver (1976). Directed by Martin Scorsese • Annie Hall (1977). Directed by Woody Allen. • Star Wars (1977). Directed by George Lucas. • The Deer Hunter (1978). Directed by Michael Cimino. • Raging Bull (1980). Directed by Martin Scorsese. • Schindler's List (1993). Directed by Steven Spielberg. • Fargo (1996). Directed by Joel Coen. • Saving Private Ryan (1998). Directed by Steven Spielberg. • Unfaithful (2002). Directed by Adrian Lyne. • Mystic River (2003). Directed by Clint Eastwood. • Million Dollar Baby (2004). Directed by Clint Eastwood. • Crash (2005). Directed by Paul Haggis. Each year as the curtain goes up on the Oscars, we hear the oft repeated claim that there are a billion people watching. Clearly this is a bit of hyperbole. But no one doubts that millions around the globe tune-in. In the U.S. alone, the show garners some 45 million viewers. Not to watch the Academy Awards? Well, perhaps a few folks don’t. But this is, after all, Hollywood, and the Oscars are a shimmering celebration of what some regard as the greatest entertainment invention of the 20th century: film. Film is magical, an enduring art form, possessed of a universal power to inspire, to capture the imagination and transport audiences to all corners of the human condition. Actually, its hold on the public imagination shouldn’t surprise. When in the history of mankind haven’t we, as a species, loved to be told a story: in the dark of night sitting around a campfire, just before falling sleep, or from the back of a horse drawn cart in the village square? We yearn to be told tales, to suspend our disbelief, to let our imaginations soar. And so we congregate in darkened theaters, and sit, eyes elevated, filled with anticipation, and watch. For centuries we have had a love affair with the narrative, and what better way to tell a story than with film — images larger than life, projected onto an enormous screen, using a technology that was barely imagined 100 years ago. A medium so intensely engaging that those who listen and watch can be moved to tears, laughter, or stunned into sorrowful silence. Movies are no small thing. Call them flicks, cinema, picture shows, motion pictures or photoplays. It all began in the late 19th century. Mechanisms were invented that set two-dimensional images in motion by displaying a sequence of still pictures at sufficient speed to create an illusion called “persistence of vision.” The eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed, so we don’t see the flickering between the frames, we only see seamless movement. It’s ingenious. The actual film stock is a transparent celluloid, polyester or plastic base coated with an emulsion of light-sensitive chemicals. Large commercial films are shot and distributed to theaters as 35 mm prints, which is still the standard for the industry. Though early films were shot at 16 frames per second, today, because of sound synchronization, it is 24 frames per second. Cameras have also evolved, allowing ever increasing ranges of angles motion, the most recent invention being that of the steadicam, a nifty piece of technology that has an armature that separates the movement of the operator from the camera, allowing the filmmaker to move over uneven ground while the camera remains steady. For a time, film was purely a visual art form, but then early into the 20th century, movies began stringing together scenes, fashioning a narrative. For a time, before sound, wanting not to leave the audience in complete silence, pianists or organists played music that fit the mood of the film. It was in the 1920’s that filmmakers were able to attach a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects to the film — these movies became known as the “talkies.” And over the succeeding decades, the “talkies” evolved into Dolby surround sound, and the thunder of a hundred horses’ hooves cascaded over the audience, coming from all directions. Black and white movies, now replete with dialogue and action, quickly found a worldwide audience. The noir films of the late 1930s and ’40s were often brooding masterpieces of nuanced lighting and clipped language. And then came color. By the end of World War II, as the process became ever more sophisticated, movies in rich, vibrant colors were soon the norm. Movies are an illusion, magical, compelling and involving, their verisimilitude so complete that the line between what is real and what is not is often blurred. It’s this lack of clarity which allows us to care about fictional characters — and it’s also what has created that persona known as the movie star. The celebrity. Actors who are so merged with the characters they portray as to be synonymous, no matter that every word they have ever uttered was written and memorized, every pose, every gesture, calculated and rehearsed. This is the power of film. The rest is just life. 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