The 20th Century Film Project
What was going on in the 20th century? What were people experiencing then and what did they believe?
You would think I would know. I was born in that century. I came of age in it. But the times have advanced and I have gradually changed. Now that the current century is more than one-sixth complete, perhaps we are just far enough out to look back and see something new across the distance.
And in at least one way, I have markedly changed since then. I have a different faith in 21st century than I had in the 20th. For me to look back in this way is to peer into a time that I was experiencing with a different understanding, a different mind, than the one that informs my experience now.
I have a small project I am beginning, a plan for how I want to look back. I am going to watch the 20th century’s movies. Specifically, I plan to watch or rewatch all of the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 movies of the 20th century, and write something of value (hopefully) out of my modern-day viewing of each of these old films.
How long it will take to do this I don’t know. Writing 100 pieces about 100 films will take a long time. Since I expect to sometimes lose interest and/or lose my way, I won’t promise any pacing. Here are some other notes on how I expect to proceed:
1. I won’t watch these movies in any particular order. Not alphabetically, not by ranking or year, and not by my own sense of which ones I think I most want to watch. To maximize variety and surprise, I will use a device for randomly selecting which one I watch next. (Hint: d100.)
2. I am using the AFI’s 1998 list of top 100 movies. There was a revised list put out in 2007. However, the earlier list has the advantage of representing the 20th century’s take on the 20th century’s best movies. This creates one problem: There is a toxic item on that list, a film from early in the century advancing a premise that deserves no airing. I might watch and write about something else in its place.
3. For movies based on well-known books that I have not read (ahem, Grapes of Wrath), I am letting myself off the hook about feeling obliged to read the book first. Plenty of writers have already compared these films to their literary source material. My aim is something different.
4. In what I write about these movies, I won’t summarize them. Wikipedia does that. I won’t rate them. Critics have done that. Instead, I’ll be looking for something as I watch them. Perhaps something timely—an insight into changing worldview that comes from watching the movie with 21st-century eyes. Or (more often, I expect) something timeless—a truth the movie’s story still conveys after all these decades, perhaps a truth I now see differently with eyes that have been given something new to see.
Here are the movies I have watched and written about so far.