The All-Time List Discussion Thread (Decade Project Vol. 3)

[domino harvey]

Mann gave us a psychologically twisted Stewart at least five years earlier with the Naked Spur, though!

[TMDaines]

Disappointing to see people say they are not going to submit a list. I'll likely have seen just under half of the candidates by the time I finish, but I'll still have a top 50 I will feel very strongly about.

Edit: typo

[domino harvey]

I agree that people should still submit if there's fifty films they've seen from the 585 they feel strongly enough about to vote for

[Red Screamer]

Mann gave us a psychologically twisted Stewart at least five years earlier with the Naked Spur, though!

Thanks, I'll have to check that out! I couldn't find the exact piece I'm referencing, so it's probably a misquote.

Okay, okay, I'll submit a list. The possibility of saving Broadcast News from being an orphan is enough incentive for me.

[Noiradelic]

I can't quit my job but, inspired (or driven insane) by doing the Hitchcock rewatches, I'm actually doing something like this right now for those kinds of reasons, with the top 400 or so films on my personal list-of-every-film-I-watch-ranked (started about 10 years ago when I got into films again and seriously developed cinephilia). Unfortunately this means I won't participate in this list because I can't trust my current ranking as it stands. I'll try to part in it when this project comes around again in X amount of years!

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. No one can completely trust their memory of every candidate of theirs for the list as some films will always have been seen more recently or more often than others. It sounds like you're more than qualified to submit a list. There's no guarantee this list will happen again, though the format does encourage participation in the next round of decade lists, and I hope there will be an all-time list in some form again.

[Mr Sausage]

I agree that people should still submit if there's fifty films they've seen from the 585 they feel strongly enough about to vote for

Yeah, I just went through and chose every film that's a particular favourite of mine. Really, the hard part is winnowing that list of 81 films down to 50.

[swo17]

I agree that people should still submit if there's fifty films they've seen from the 585 they feel strongly enough about to vote for

Absolutely.

[Tommaso]

I feel strongly enough about some films to vote for them if they were only on the list

[swo17]

Imagine how difficult it would be to narrow your choices down to 50 if you could vote outside the master list.

[TMDaines]

A certain backchannel currently has a freeleech period for hoovering up those less readily available films...

[domino harvey]

I can't even get the front page to load, I guess word's out!

[swo17]

I wouldn't be opposed to an extension if people were going to make good use of it...

[domino harvey]

I feel strongly enough about some films to vote for them if they were only on the list

I know there's a lot of dross on this list (and what those titles are varies on who is looking at it), but I don't believe for a second that anyone who posts here could not find a worthy top fifty from the titles proffered

[Tommaso]

Yes, certainly, I agree. It's only that my 'real' Top 20 would feature two or three films that are not eligible. But that's the nature of this project, and nobody should worry if they don't manage to see all the films on the list. Many people have their favourites already, so it doesn't make much sense to watch a film by a director which didn't even make it onto your decades lists just for the sake of having seen it because it's on the list of eligible films for this project. If it's an unknown director to you, it may be different of course.

[TMDaines]

I wouldn't be opposed to an extension if people were going to make good use of it...

I'd love an extension. House move at the start of the period, followed by a month or two getting my projector and home cinema set up (plus three holidays!) meant that I haven't hit the ground running and my keyvip is large.

Just me?

[domino harvey]

I'll let people decide my fate on which of my unseen titles to watch if we get an extension. I mean, I can't imagine anyone is on the edge of their seats on whether I see AI before submitting but maybe they are

[knives]

I actually suspect that is one you'd generally like better on the list.

[Noiradelic]

I'm always for extensions because I tend to cram in the last month/week. Seen 41 films so far, but haven't done any rewatches and hope to view at least 50.

[swo17]

How much more time would people like?

[Shrew]

Another vote for an extension here, maybe 2 weeks to a month. I've gotten through 495 films (starting at ~400), but January has become busier than expected for me and I've reset my final goal to a measly 500. Although several of the films left on my list are the behemoths, and I'll admit that I won't get to them anytime soon, even with an extension (sorry, Heimat and Shoah), but I do fully intend to make room for Jeanne Dielmann.

As for new films breaking into my top 50, the only real candidates so far are The Cameraman's Revenge and Menilmontant since early cinema, animation, and avant-garde film are all weak areas for me that I'm glad to have boned up on a little thanks to this project. While I feel bad for not being more open-minded, I also initially had 62 films from this list ranked as must include and another 60 as strong possibilities, so something really has to wow me in order stand much of chance. I've loved or admired (or both) the majority of films I've seen here, so I don't feel it's a loss (my bottom so far are The Man Who Left His Will on Film, Lawrence of Arabia, Millennium Mambo, and Mirror, all of which have other films by their directors I've connected with much more).

I've been meaning to do longer write-ups on The World, Docks of New York, and Henry Fool. I'll try to get at least one up before the final bell tolls, but in the meantime, please consider these spotlights or final suggestions to watch/rewatch/move up your queue.

[Rayon Vert]

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Thanks for the advice, noir. You're right. I'll assemble a list from a mixture of what I've been able to start re-evaluating in the past months and guesses as to what would still best hold up for me. And any extension (any amount would be welcomed) would just make this more easy!

[Rayon Vert]

How much more time would people like?

I would dearly love an added month. Ideally 2, but I'd take whatever everyone's OK with. Planning to just rewatch films from the master list, at least one a night.

[oh yeah]

I can't believe my only long write-up is for this, but here goes.

Body Double (Brian De Palma 1984)

"There's a man following you"
"I know."
"No, uh...it's not me."


Somebody said the cruelest sleight-of-hand Hitchcock ever pulled on the American public was turning a beloved movie star like Jimmy Stewart into a damaged, domineering wretch like Scottie Ferguson. The cruelest (and funniest) prank De Palma ever pulled was recasting the role of Scottie Ferguson with Craig Wasson. Wasson is to Stewart what Body Double is to Vertigo, and what Los Angeles is to San Francisco.

There are other De Palma movies that recontextualize other people's work, both brilliantly (Carrie as a gender swapped Psycho about the horrors of growing up) and not-so-brilliantly (Dressed to Kill as a brainless Psycho with regressive gender politics), but Body Double is where he takes the idea to its (il)logical conclusion. Which, in this case, is a synthesis of Rear Window & Vertigo, 80s genre movies, pornography, and MTV (life imitates art). In this post-modern soup, De Palma ridicules the influence of MTV and pornography on Hollywood's aesthetics, connecting porn to the excessive phallic imagery of horror movies and the visceral satisfaction of both shoddily made music videos and expertly crafted genre movies. He goes further, comparing easy-to-please film critics to unthinking porn viewers. De Palma also realizes that in an age of ubiquitous pornography, including voyeur porn, his audience is no longer alienated by one Peeping Tom. So there's scenes of Scully watching someone watch someone, and scenes of other people watching him watch someone. The whole movie works on a similar principle, taking everything that it's remixing one step further, even the already overdone, but it's for a reason not just for laughs (though there are plenty of those too).

Even the old trick of making Hitchcock's subtext text has real purpose here: by removing any beauty, romance, or mystery from Scottie's obsession in Vertigo, Scully's stalking is driven solely by adolescent lust, becoming more and more pathetic and creepy. Accordingly, there's a recreation of Vertigo's famous mirror shot and spinning camera kiss on a porno set, and the latter is crosscut with a scene from earlier in the film that is itself a porn-y recreation of another originally romantic moment. One of the most painful and emotional scenes in cinema is ironically transformed into juvenile male wish fulfillment. Another aspect of the movie's hilarious takedown of the trope of "nice guy" protagonists is Scully justifying himself by claiming that he's trying to stop a creepier guy from doing exactly what he's doing. And that ridiculous villain is in reality a malicious racial stereotype scapegoated by a rich white man for profit, and is exploited in other ways by Scully as an overblown opposition to make his sleaziness seem excusable by comparison, with De Palma's critique broadly extending to genre conventions that regularly do the same.

If any of these descriptions make Body Double sound didactic, comfortable, or clear-headed, let me say that it's anything but. The movie reflexively implicates itself and its audience at every turn. Watching it is like receiving a neverending stream of fuck yous, a sophomoric variation of Godard's style of complete audience alienation that is a perfect fit for the material. But for all of its post-modern pranksterism, the movie is also deliriously fun. I mean, just look at the slicked-back hair and all-leather outfit Wasson is stuck in for the entire second half of the movie. As one of the many with an intense personal connection to Vertigo, this movie really upset me the first time I saw it, so I can't blame anyone else for having a similar response. But on rewatch, I admired its brazen parody ("Scully" and "Scottie" sound similar, the actors physically resemble each other, and there are scenes where I'm pretty sure Wasson is literally doing a Jimmy Stewart impersonation) and found its commentary on Vertigo and beyond provocative. Many viewings later, it has become one of my favorite movies, never failing to elicit from me something like Kael's "tiny hedgehog squeaks and raptures" for The Fury. Body Double is De Palma at his most engaging, somehow simultaneously generous and cruel, delightful and troubling, ludicrous and lucid, academic and moronic. In terms of movies I love that make me hate movies, this is, ironically, second only to Vertigo.


If I do some remarkable catch-up and am able to submit a list, this would be somewhere in the top half.

Great review. I had a very surreal experience last night; I came across this exact review on Letterboxd, liked it and followed the author, and then went to CriterionForum where the first post I saw was... yours. (I assume you posted it there as well, unless we have a plagiarist on our hands!)

Anyway, I agree Body Double is definitely one of De Palma's best films. I wouldn't place it quite on the same level as what I regard to be his masterpieces (Carlito's Way, Blow Out and Casualties of War), but it's not too far behind those three and one of the reasons why may be because I really think that, like them, it has a strong sense of empathy and irony-free tragedy to it. It's a pretty ludicrous film on its face, but De Palma really takes the emotional core seriously, and it all ends up being far more than just another PoMo joke-y exercise in past master-pastiche. Sure, it's still silly, but it's surprisingly poignant.

I also like how you pointed out Wasson's impersonation of Stewart; there are certainly at least a handful of scenes where it seems like his vocal mannerisms are completely imitating Jimmy's distinctive style of speech. In the second part of the film he becomes a bit more Cool and "suave" and less gee-shucks innocent guy, but of course that's all a ruse anyway.

Honestly though I'm still not too crazy about the ending of the film, everything from the return to film-set reality onward. It's a bit less evocative than the film that preceded it, I think. But then, I'm willing to forgive a great De Palma flick even if it flubs the ending to some extent. (I'd actually place Snake Eyes just behind Body Double; even though it's got a deflated, pretty weak final 15-20 minutes, it also has an often extraordinary and imaginative first 80).

[movielocke]

Honestly I don't know that a month would change my list much, it's doubtful that I'd see more than half a dozen to a dozen, and very unlikely that one of those dozen could break into the top fifty, and the next month is "catch up on all the 2016 titles I missed" time. So even getting another six in seems unlikely.

[Red Screamer]

It's a pretty ludicrous film on its face, but De Palma really takes the emotional core seriously, and it all ends up being far more than just another PoMo joke-y exercise in past master-pastiche. Sure, it's still silly, but it's surprisingly poignant.

Yeah, that was me! I agree that some of De Palma's best movies are the ones he takes seriously, but for me, this is not one of them. I find it entirely nasty and detached.

I could do with an extension, I still have more huge bind spots than I'd like. And domino, AI is a must. On some days it's my favorite Spielberg and my favorite Kubrick!