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Entry Points
by Craig J. Clark
Created 01/04/13
Everybody has to start somewhere. These films -- viewed over the course of a decade and change -- are among the ones that started me down the path to being the well-rounded film buff I am today.-
Back when I was in high school I caught this one on PBS because I was intrigued by the notion of Shakespeare being adapted to another culture. (This was, of course, before I became aware that oftentimes that was the norm rather than the exception.) As an introduction to A) samurai films, B) Kurosawa, and C) Mifune, I probably couldn't have asked for better.
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If it was good enough for Isaac and Tracy in Manhattan, then it was good enough for me.
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Early in my collegiate career I found myself drawn to the campus Cinemateque, which programmed a mix of foreign films and Hollywood classics. These three films were among the ones I saw that made a deep impression on me. (As a matter of fact, I was the one who suggested The Seventh Seal, which I was desperate to see at the time.)
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Here are three more I saw in college, all of them in the classroom. I don't remember too much about the course I saw 8 1/2 in, but I do recall the instructor who showed us Paris, Texas saying we were lucky he couldn't locate his copy of The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick. As for Night on Earth, it was my first hint that there was more to American cinema than what could be found at the local multiplex.
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I spent my last semester of college studying abroad in England. Like my school, their university had its own film series, which introduced me to the glory of Godard's classic period. As a result, this will always be one of my favorites.
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In a post-collegiate environment, the budding cinephile must chart his or her own course. Enter Martin Scorsese, whose championing of these two films convinced me they were worth checking out. It is strange to think, though, that my first Michael Powell film was one of his most divisive.
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Buñuel had long been an intriguing figure to me, but it took this film being re-released in theaters (to mark the centennial of his birth) for me to be directly exposed to his work. Once I was bitten, there was no going back.
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The re-release of this film was a similar revelation that turned me into a lifelong Melville fan. And if you're a Melville fan, you pretty much have to be Criterion fan because who else releases his movies?
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