TCM's 15 Most Influential Films of All Time - Page 2

Still a milestone, not even close to being influential. T2 didn't change anything, it just upped the tech ante.

If you want a second movie you've seen on the list, you're probably better off arguing THE MATRIX.

Your insight into what movies I've seen, and haven't seen, is breathtaking.

I'd argue that it was the technology itself that was influential, and that there's nothing specific to The Jazz Singer that carried through to those later films.

Also, while there were filmmakers who used sound artfully, you can also make the argument that the introduction of sound set the art of cinematography back 5-10 years. The mobile cameras and interesting shots of the late silent period went into hibernation in the early 30s, as the actors were practically tethered to cumbersome recording equipment. EDIT: Somehow, that seemed like a relevant point when I was first typing it.

Yeah, this is the problem with using 'milestones' to mean influential. Sound was going to happen, even with resistance. If it wasn't THE JAZZ SINGER it would have been something else. CGI was coming, regardless of whether or not YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES or T2 or whatever got made.

Arguably the first time computers were used to help special effects, which was probably 2001. If then that's the argument, Lumiere's Trip to the Moon should be on the list, or the 1933 King Kong. That said, it's a fine list for what it is, but it's a meat and potato list.

How about something from the 90s that had influence. I'm not saying on this list but Pulp Fiction should qualify.

I've got 8/15. I have absolutely no idea how I'd go about finding a copy of Birth of a Nation though.

Do you not consider T2 because the overall quality of the movie (script, direction, acting) isn't on par with the others on the list?

There's a Region 2 DVD.

It's public domain, so it should be online for free somewhere.

The inevitably appearance of montage, juxtaposition, and other basic elements of film grammar doesn't seem to discount the influence of a Nation, or a Potemkin. Of course sound was inevitable. That doesn't mean it would have happened when or how it did in our film history. Jazz Singer isn't even really a technical milestone, because everything it did, had already been done. It was the first to apply the technology on that scale, in that specific way, in front of that many eyes. Because of it, the whole way the public interfaced with films changed. The shift to sound didn't have to happen when it did, it could have happened much later had any of a number of variables been different.

EDIT: I think Andre's hit the nail on the head.

Yep.

Netflix has a copy of Birth of a Nation last time I checked.

Would HEAVEN'S GATE have been a worthy entry for negative influence?

*Shakes head*

Even if I believed that film grammar would have inevitably ended up where it is today without Griffith or Eisenstein's contributions (and I don't), those films were influential for reasons that have nothing to do with their formal innovations. Birth of a Nation, more than any other film, was the film that showed American audiences that movies weren't just cheap entertainment for immigrants and children, but could stand beside novels and theater as an art form for adults. And the political uses of Eisenstein's work in uniting a diverse young Soviet Union presaged a century of filmed propaganda.

EDIT: And that's true of just about every film on the list. They're innovative in form, but also culturally influential. The list leans towards the latter. Hence, no Jazz Singer.

All true, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. In terms of this list though... 15 slots is too few to start arguing about, I guess.

I'm not saying that T2 is on par with those films but from a technical standpoint, its definitely one of the most influential films of the last 35 years. Even more so than Star Wars, IMO.

See "MILESTONE" vs. "INFLUENTIAL". Either way, the list is way too small and there's no way to satisfy everyone with one all-encompasing mega-list.

I was thinking about this, and it is surprising that nothing from the independent era is on there. But something like Sex, Lies and Videotape or Slacker would be more of a milestone, anyway. I think of all the films from the 90s, though, you could make the strongest possible argument for Matrix and Pulp Fiction. Pulp moreso, because it's been 15 years. But I get how you would want a little more distance than that.

bullshit. it's narrative is influential and extends to comics, books and general modern storytelling of an action variety.

your opinion is fucked.

The Indie era is too recent, even for this list. But mind you the films on there aren't all from the "studio system" either.

I think that's the best argument for including either Shadows or Easy Rider--it gives you the ability to talk about the entire independent movement, but doesn't limit you to its 90s incarnation.

You could also make the case for Shaft, Blood Feast and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. As Joe Bob Briggs did. But GWTW for Shadows would be my only alteration.

No, I'm not. They're a lot of other films that if you had to pin as the most influential romantic comedy would come before it.

But, it's more of a trying to figure out the TCM process which seems incredibly scattershot.

I've spent a great deal more time learning about horror movie history than movie history on the whole, so from my point of view Nosferatu, Black Sunday, night of the Living Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Jaws, and Halloween all have a place on such a list. Though I suppose we're trying to cover all genres with only 15 entries here.

But, they're not really covering all genres. They're double-dipping all over the place, while casually ignoring others. Then, there's the 1960-1977 gap that blows over Dr. Strangelove, 2001, Easy Rider, Network, Taxi Driver, The French Connection, Lawrence of Arabia and countless other films.

Yeah. Maybe CHUD should make a list by genre.

..or maybe I just thought of something to blog about!

None of those are as influential as It Happened One Night. (Only Easy Rider even comes close) It's one of the truly indisputable choices on list. Not sure what you're not getting.

I also like that Ford has two. He is the G.O.A.T.

Think we underestimate the importance of GWTW today. The Bible Belt was very resistant of cinema, thinking it (seriously) a tool of the devil. A lavish adaption of a book that glorified & mythologized the old South was brilliant. It's triumph a big part of making the cinema a truly national pasttime. (the birth of the event movie?) It's part of historical record the amount of people from around the South--during the worst of the depression--traveling to Atlanta to see GWTW on the big screen.

It's also a matter of context. There are a number of later romantic comedies that are just as good, but It Happened One Night preceded and arguably influenced most of the great ones.

Nice try.

But, how does the ground covered by Birth of a Nation not crossbreed into Gone with the Wind. If we're going for the broader American epic, then did Birth not set the tone for Gone?

If we're all fine and dandy with the John Ford double-dipping, then why does a blind eye get turned to that?

Are we still unclear what influential really means in this context? It's ones that people are still trying emulate years later, not ones that stand out as having been simply important for whatever they introduced or portrayed so well at the time.

Lawrence
Taxi Driver
Network
Jurassic Park

none of these is something people are desperately trying to reproduce.

Even something Clerks is really a talk piece that's reverent to Jarmusch who in turn is by way of Cassavetes -- so Dre's Shadows pick still hold up very well as a suggestion.

Omissions that, while not surprising (there are only 15 spots, most taken well), would not have been surprised to see based on the criterion that people are still trying to make these things today or are using techniques that can be traced back right to these points:

Sunrise
The Wild Bunch
Reservoir Dogs (more than Pulp Fiction since it was the more easily imitatable "bunch of guy in a room" not an expansive canvas)
Mean Streets (although maybe this is simply the Shadows ethos Dre is mentioning with more guns and hottt suits?)
Halloween (or if you're going to be pedantic about how slashers evolved from giallo you go back to Bava's Twitch Of The Death Nerve or even The Girl Who Knew Too Much -- though, again, those are more milestones than an influential pictures everyone is trying to emulate)
The Killer
Saw

GWTW was influrntial to producers with inflated ego, I guess. That's a demonstable legacy (that may or may not have happened regardless). But then, you could say the same about De Mille's epics or Vom Stroheims, all earlier than Selznick's folly.

I see the reasoning behind Sunrise, but I fail to see the justification for The Killer.

Hell, going back to the previous sticking point. Why It Happened One Night and not His Girl Friday? The whole decree of where the sphere of influence starts keeps wavering in and out in here.

I thought about that too, but I think that if you're going to go Wild Bunch for its explicit violence and moral ambiguity, you've got to go back to Bonnie and Clyde first. But then Bonnie and Clyde is directly influenced by Breathless in a lot of ways.

Having both Halloween and Psycho on the list would be somewhat redundant.

Exactly.

Nailing down the sphere of influence seems to be the big thread behind all of this. Even Ebert's piece trying to explain the choices didn't really cover all bases.


Plus, just accepting stated norms for what's influential and what's not isn't really that set in stone. There's the historical context, there's trending in a genre and then there's the various claptrap that comes with doing lists like these.

Re: Halloween The subjective and gliding camera -- Black Christmas may have done it in a more rudimentary fashion, Carpenter using the Panaglide made it a genre signature preceeded virtually every slasher film for the next 20 years and beyond. That makes it far more influential on the slasher film than Psycho, which is not a slasher film. (I think Dev wrote something about that particular sometime last year some time, and I agree with him). I don't know how many fims Psycho actually influenced, except for a few by William Castle. It (belatedly) validated the horror genre when such critical discourse was eventually accorded it, but that's different from influencing other films. Halloween was more influenced by Argento than Psycho, so I've heard Carpenter say.


Re: The Killer: it's because that's the picture that most action pictures for years afterwards, from Vic Armstrong and Joshua Tree to Phil Joanau's State Of Grace to Tony Scott, Michael Bay et al are looking to emulate. Hence it's influential. Same with The Wild Bunch (although I guess there's a cross over there to some extent). You can trace the lineage back and back and back for gun violence and eventually come to The Muskteers Of Pig Alley and The Great Train Robbery but when a director is going for varied frame rates for a gun fight to heighten the violence, you can be sure he's looking to Woo and Peckinpah, not to Penn, for the inspiration. Besides, Peckinpah was more indebted to some TV cop show starring Brian Keith that Lou Lombardo worked on where he intercut a guy falling with more shots of guns going off a different frame rates that Bonnie & Clyde...

It Happened One Night is a significant screwball comedy that predates His Girl Friday by about half a decade. I don't think you can argue that many comedies of this specific type that were released prior to IHON are as popular now as either of these movies. If you're dealing with two movies of that importance, doesn't it make sense to go with the earlier of the two?

Ah, my mistake, it was Joe Don Baker, not Brian Keith (he of Peckinpah's own TV show?)That's from wikipedia, but the story is detailed in full in David Weddell's rather great book If They Move, Kill 'Em. It says, of course, that Bonnie & Clyde paved the way, but The Wild Bunch changed the way cinematic violence was portrayed in the popular consciousness.

Well, that's part of the debate. Chronology vs. actual importance. Does the earlier film hold precedence over the film that actually had more impact within a genre?

That's the main question I have with this list and I love reading whatever has to say about it.

Defer to your exstensive film knowlege, but to me, Halloween and The Killer feel more like footnotes. And while not as stylized, Penn's B & C almost has to get the nod over Peckinpah. (W.o. Penn we don't get Coppola)

The overlooked Action movie is Dirty Harry. Reactionary politics aside; influencial in 70's style and tone.

But that's the thing, the film that did it first isn't necessarily the one that influences the most other films, no? That''s not being influential, that's being pioneering. cf the The Jazz Singer (which wasn't even the first to have lines of dialogue -- Sunrise has audible speaking on its soundtrack in the street scene where there's almopst a pile up as they get off the tram. though I'm not in any way saying that's one of the reasons it should be on a most influential list...)

Thank you, Straxboy. Now, I feel like we're all getting somewhere.

I mean, that's what Dre and Dev and a bunch of others have been sensibly saying for two pages, but I guess you could say my post's being the most influential one?

META.

Isn't it?

I'm not contesting any of your points, but that's a very narrow sphere of influence. You're talking about the film's (admittedly huge) effect on one subgenre. By that rationale, Night of the Living Dead should be on there. Actually, I think you could make a much stronger argument for that film than for Halloween.

As far as Bonnie & Clyde vs. The Wild Bunch, while the former may not have been a huge influence on Peckinpah, it was a huge influence on audiences and Hollywood's understanding of what they wanted, which undoubtedly resulted in Peckinpah having much greater freedom to pursue his vision.

Going back to Gone With the Wind: Sure other movies shared similar themes, had epic scope or were popular before, but Gone With the Wind was the one that broke cinema through to a national past-time. (I am being told I am totally wrong about this; interested in and would welcome any feedback.)

This was the movie that was a must-see for everyone, regardless of age, religion, ideology, whatever. The movie was a transcending experience like Star Wars (or The Dark Knight!) for a later generation.

*to clarify on Dirty Harry-don't think it belongs on the list; just deserves to be included with the Honorable Mention titles being floated around

Alsoran: Point Blank?

I guess my take in terms of chronology vs. importance for this particular example is that, when it comes to two films of comparable influence, you go with the earlier of the two.

Maybe I'm overestimating the importance of It Happened One Night or something, but I don't think it's generally regarded as less important or influential than His Girl Friday. The two might be perceived as equally important and influential, but, like I mentioned above, when faced with comparable examples, why not go with the pioneer?

Well, that's always been the prevailing point. Pioneer goes first. I'm just saying that in the grand scheme of things, the pioneer isn't necessarily the most deserving film.