1960--The Year in Review

As soon as 1960 struck, the movie world shook as if a massive earthquake had shifted its tectonic plates. No longer were the American studio products accepted by rote. In fact, it's astounding how far American movies fell off the map--the studios were clearly confused by what was happening (so many of their works now felt lifelessly stiff). Instead, the year's finest movies--goosed with the energy of sex and violence and mystery--hailed from other countries; in short, the art film exploded into the stratosphere. Yet prevailing over all is a potboiler by a British director, darting between episodes of his popular American TV series as he searched for a hit that would keep his movie career chugging along. This very work changed the way movies would be made and seen forever (Psycho initiated the then new concept that filmgoers would not be admitted into the auditorium after the film started, and it, of course, made everyone afraid to take a shower for decades to come). As far as the Oscars go, they showed a final display of love for a brilliant (German, by birth) filmmaker who'd been denied the top spot the year before. But it's Hitchcock's shocking modern horror film that still stuns everyone who sees it, to the point that superb and more rewardingly difficult films lie supplicant to its grimy charms. I should note: I've decided this is the first year that a Documentary Feature award should be implemented--and, surprisingly, the winner is one that fully details the American democratic process. With the short films, a movie from Canada proved to be an inspiration to a future masterpiece from Stanley Kubrick (whose epic 1960 movie--made without his full directorial approval--cemented his standing as a bankable filmmaker). And, in animation, both Warner Brothers and a mad experimental movie nut are bested by a film derived from the work of cartoonist and social commentator Jules Feiffer. NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and are only occasionally reflective of the selections made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka The Oscars). When available, the nominee that actually won the Oscar will be highlighted in bold. 

PICTURE: PSYCHO (US, Alfred Hitchcock)
(2nd: The Virgin Spring (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman), followed by:
Breathless (France, Jean-Luc Godard)
La Dolce Vita (Italy, Federico Fellini)
Le Trou (France, Jacques Becker)
Purple Noon (France/Italy, René Clément)
Shoot the Piano Player (France, François Truffaut)
L’Avventura (Italy, Michelangelo Antonioni)
Primary (US, Robert Drew and Richard Leacock)
Spartacus (US, Stanley Kubrick)
Jigoku (Japan, Nobuko Nakagawa)
Peeping Tom (UK, Michael Powell)
Late Autumn (Japan, Yasujiro Ozu)
The Bad Sleep Well (Japan, Akira Kurosawa)
Eyes Without a Face (France, Georges Franju)
Sons and Lovers (UK, Jack Cardiff)
Inherit the Wind (US, Stanley Kramer)
The Magnificent Seven (US, John Sturges)
Le Testament d’Orphée (France, Jean Cocteau)
Pollyanna (US, David Swift)
Elmer Gantry (US, Richard Brooks)
The Apartment (US, Billy Wilder)
Rocco and His Brothers (Italy, Luchino Visconti)
Tunes of Glory (UK, Ronald Neame)
Cruel Story of Youth (Japan, Nagisa Oshima)
The League of Gentlemen (UK, Basil Dearden)
Village of the Damned (UK, Wolf Rilla)
Two Women (Italy, Vittorio de Sica)
Comanche Station (US, Budd Boetticher)
The Little Shop of Horrors (US, Roger Corman)
Never on Sunday (Greece, Jules Dassin)
The Angry Silence (UK, Guy Green)
Black Sunday (Italy, Mario Bava)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (US, Karel Reisz)
The Young One (Mexico, Luis Buñuel)
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Japan, Mikio Naruse)
Zazie dans le Métro (France, Louis Malle)
The Sundowners (US, Fred Zinnemann)
Midnight Lace (US, David Miller)
Wild River (US, Elia Kazan)
Le Petit Soldat (France, Jean-Luc Godard)
Bells are Ringing (US, Vincente Minnelli)
The House of Usher (US, Roger Corman)
Exodus (US, Otto Preminger)
Sergeant Rutledge (US, John Ford)
Les Bonnes Femmes (France, Claude Chabrol)
Strangers When We Meet (US, Richard Quine)
Blood and Roses (France, Roger Vadim)
The 1,000 Eyes of Dr Mabuse (Germany, Fritz Lang)
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (US, Budd Boetticher))



ACTOR: Anthony Perkins, PSYCHO (2nd: Spencer Tracy, Inherit the Wind, followed by: Fredric March, Inherit the Wind; Charles Aznavour, Shoot the Piano Player; Laurence Olivier, The Entertainer; Alain Delon, Purple Noon; Burt Lancaster, Elmer Gantry; Jean-Paul Belmondo, Breathless; Marcello Mastroianni, La Dolce Vita; Jack Lemmon, The Apartment)

ACTRESS: Hayley Mills, POLLYANNA (2nd: Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment, followed by: Sophia Loren, Two Women (voted at the top the following year); Monica Vitti, L’Avventura; Doris Day, Midnight Lace; Jean Simmons, Elmer Gantry; Barbara Steele, Black Sunday; Melina Mercouri, Never on Sunday; Dorothy McGuire, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs; Jean Seberg, Breathless)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Harry Morgan, INHERIT THE WIND (2nd: Peter Ustinov, Spartacus, followed by: Martin Balsam, Psycho; Trevor Howard, Sons and Lovers; Charles Laughton, Spartacus; Karl Malden, Pollyanna; Alastair Sim, School for Scoundrels; Nigel Patrick, The League of Gentlemen; Fred MacMurray, The Apartment; Sal Mineo, Exodus) 

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Janet Leigh, PSYCHO (2nd: Agnes Moorehead, Pollyanna, followed by: Wendy Hiller, Sons and Lovers; Shirley Jones, Elmer Gantry; Shirley Knight, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs; Vera Miles, Psycho; Alida Valli, Eyes Without a Face; Mary Ure, Sons and Lovers; Glynis Johns, The Sundowners; Brenda de Banzie, The Entertainer)



DIRECTOR: Alfred Hitchcock, PSYCHO (2nd: Jean-Luc Godard, Breathless, followed by: Ingmar Bergman, The Virgin Spring; Federico Fellini, La Dolce Vita; Jacques Becker, Le Trou; Rene Clement, Purple Noon; Francois Truffaut, Shoot the Piano Player; Michelangelo Antonioni, L’Avventura; Nobuko Nakagawa, Jigoku; Michael Powell, Peeping Tom) 



NON-ENGLISH-LANGUAGE FILM: THE VIRGIN SPRING (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman) (2nd: Breathless (France, Jean-Luc Godard), followed by: La Dolce Vita (Italy, Federico Fellini); Le Trou (France, Jacques Becker); Purple Noon (France/Italy, René Clément); Shoot the Piano Player (France, François Truffaut); L’Avventura (Italy, Michelangelo Antonioni); Jigoku (Japan, Nobuko Nakagawa); Late Autumn (Japan, Yasujiro Ozu); The Bad Sleep Well (Japan, Akira Kurosawa); Eyes Without a Face (France, Georges Franju); Le Testament d’Orphée (France, Jean Cocteau); Rocco and His Brothers (Italy, Luchino Visconti); Cruel Story of Youth (Japan, Nagisa Oshima); Two Women (Italy, Vittorio de Sica); The Young One (Mexico, Luis Buñuel); When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Japan, Mikio Naruse); Zazie dans le Métro (France, Louis Malle))

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: PRIMARY (US, Robert Drew and Richard Leacock) (2nd: The Horse with the Flying Tail (US, Larry Lansburgh)) 

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Ulla Isaksson, THE VIRGIN SPRING (2nd: Michelangelo Antonioni, Elio Bartolini, and Tonino Guerra, L'Avventura, followed by: Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, and Brunello Rondi, La Dolce Vita; Marguerite Duras, Hiroshima Mon Amour; Francois Truffaut, Breathless)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Francois Truffaut and Marcel Moussy, SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (2nd: Rene Clement and Paul Gegauff, Purple Noon, followed by: Jacques Becker, Jean Aurel, and Jose Giovanni, Le Trou; Joseph Stefano, Psycho; Nedric Young and Harold Jacob Smith, Inherit the Wind)



LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: UNIVERSE (Canada, Roman Kroiter and Colin Low) (2nd: The Dead (US, Stan Brakhage), followed by: Giuseppina (UK, James Hill); Baum im Herbst (Trees in Autumn) (Austria, Kurt Kren); Beyond Silence (US, Edmond Levy); A City Called Copenhagen (Denmark, Jorgen Roos))



ANIMATED SHORT FILM: MUNRO (US, Gene Deitch) (2nd: High Note (US, Chuck Jones), followed by: Goliath II (US, Wolfgang Reitherman); Arnulf Rainer (Austria, Peter Kubelka); Hyde and Go Tweet (US, Friz Freleng); Person to Bunny (US, Friz Freleng))

BLACK-AND-WHITE CINEMATOGRAPHY: John L. Russell, PSYCHO (2nd: Freddie Francis, Sons and Lovers, followed by: Sven Nykvist, The Virgin Spring; Raoul Coutard, Shoot the Piano Player; Joseph LaShelle, The Apartment; Aldo Scavarda, L’Avventura) 

COLOR CINEMATOGRAPHY: Russell Metty, SPARTACUS (2nd: Henri Decaë, Purple Noon, followed by: Mamoru Morita, Jigoku; Otto Heller, Peeping Tom; John Alton, Elmer Gantry; Mario Bava and Ubaldo Terzano, Black Sunday) 

BLACK-AND-WHITE ART DIRECTION: PSYCHO, The Apartment, Sons and Lovers, The Facts of Life, The Fugitive Kind



COLOR ART DIRECTION: SPARTACUS, Jigoku, The Time Machine, Sunrise at Campobello, Midnight Lace

BLACK-AND-WHITE COSTUME DESIGN: LA DOLCE VITA (won in 1961), Never on Sunday, The Facts of Life, Black Sunday, The Virgin Spring

COLOR COSTUME DESIGN: MIDNIGHT LACE, Spartacus, Pollyanna, Sunrise at Campobello, Tunes of Glory


FILM EDITING: PSYCHO, Breathless, Purple Noon, Inherit the Wind, Le Trou

SOUND: SPARTACUS, The Alamo, The Apartment, Inherit the Wind, Psycho



ORIGINAL SCORE: Bernard Herrmann, PSYCHO (2nd: Elmer Bernstein, The Magnificent Seven, followed by: Alex North, Spartacus; Nino Rota, La Dolce Vita; Georges Delerue, Shoot the Piano Player; Ernest Gold, Exodus)

ADAPTED OR MUSICAL SCORE: Andre Previn, BELLS ARE RINGING (2nd: Lionel Newman and Earle Hagen, Let's Make Love, followed by: Nelson Riddle, Can-Can) 



ORIGINAL SONG: "North to Alaska" from NORTH TO ALASKA (Music and lyrics by Mike Phillips) (2nd: "Where the Boys Are" from Where the Boys Are (Music by Neil Sedaka, lyrics by Howard Greenfield), followed by: "Never on Sunday" from Never on Sunday (Music and lyrics by Manos Hadjidakis); "The Facts of Life" from The Facts of Life (Music and lyrics by Johnny Mercer))



SPECIAL EFFECTS: THE TIME MACHINE, The Last Voyage

MAKEUP: THE TIME MACHINE, Jigoku, Eyes Without a Face

The Encyclopedia of Cinematography (I-J)

Just as a reminder: in the spirit and thrust of this series, the names beside the titles are of the PHOTOGRAPHER of the film, and not of the director.  

 

I Am Cuba (Sergei Urusevsky, 64)
A silvery, sumptuous look into the secretive world of 60s Cuba, with a series of impossible shots that need to be seen to be believed.  An incredibly influential movie...even this scene was aped in Boogie Nights...and we're not even taking into account this shot's previous trip up the length of a Havana high-rise! And we're not EVEN talking about the camera floating above a cigar factory, and then hovering over a massive funeral!  And this doesn't even cover a 20th of it!!

The Ice Storm (Frederick Elmes, 96)  
A chilly look at 70s sexual decadence, and its effects on a set of familes.  In its expressive darkness, Elmes' work approaches here the greatness of his dealings with David Lynch.

if… (Miroslav Ondricek, 68)
Switching in random order with black-and-white and color (for location and budgetary reasons alone), Ondricek and director Lindsay Anderson make it all seem like a sickening, exciting vision made from well-considered scratch. 

Ikiru (Asaichi Nakai, 52) 
One downtrodden man's reach for something greater, filmed with utmost care. 

"I Know Where I'm Going!" (Irwin Hiller, 44)   
So many stupendous images!  It's jut something you're gonna hafta see on your own!  Don't take my word on it. Check out Powell and Pressberger's masterpiece, and get educated.  It took me a while to get around to it!
 

The Illusionist (Dick Pope, 2006) 
Utterly beautiful, and with a wild color pallette!

Images (Vilmos Zsigmond, 72)  
Horror, and a mental breakdown, told with an almost continually colossal array of images, both in close-up and in ridiculously large long shots.  

Imitation of Life (Russell Metty, 59) 
Delicious '50s Technicolor, by a couple of masters (the second being the famed Douglas Sirk). 

In A Lonely Place (Burnett Guffey, 50) 
Madness, horrifically lit.   

In Cold Blood (Conrad Hall, 67)
Every shot in Richard Brooks' movie pops HARD, and this is because of Hall's total commitment to the tale.  This particular scene here. with the raindrops on the window mirroring the teardrops on Perry's face, influenced movies for decades hence--but no one ever did it better...
 

Inherit the Wind (Ernest Laszlo, 60)  
With his inventive B&W, lens choices, and camera placements, Laszlo continues his collaboration with director Stanley Kramer, and in doing so, continues his position as that director's greatest asset.

In The Mood for Love (Christopher Doyle, Pung-Leung Kwan and Ping Bin Lee, 2000)
Absolutely indespensable. Every shot is total mastery, in movement and coloring. The lighting here is just extraordinary!  

In The Realm of the Senses (Hideo Ito, 76) 
Sex has never been filmed better.  Not in a narrative movie, at least...

Inception (Wally Pfister, 2010) 
A dream world explodes, unforgettably. 

Inglourious Basterds (Richard Richardson, 2009)
An impossible history, filmed without match as classic pulp.

The Innocents (Freddie Francis, 61) 
Judging on cinematography alone, the greatest horror film ever made. Shot in wide-screen and in black-and-white, and totally essential for both genre fans and non-...

The Insider (Dante Spinotti, 99)
Many of its shots highlight the lead's loneliness and isolation.  A prime example of storytelling and characterization through cinematography.  

Interiors (Gordon Willis, 78)
Willis turns his dark eye to a more European stance.  He keeps his personality, but does so in an adventurous way.  The bland beiges often erupt with bright reds, overexposed whites, and deadly greys.  

Irreversible (Benoit Debie, 2002) 
Almost unwatchable, but in a way that's difficult to turn away from...

It Happened Here (Kevin Brownlow and Peter Suschitzky, 65)
Documentary-like filmmaking that makes you think this is some sort of historical drama that REALLY occurred.  Even looking at it today, it's difficult to believe that it wasn't filmed in the post-war '40s.  

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Ernest Laszlo, 63)
The famous widescreen process called Cinerama at perhaps its most intrepid.  Definitely a movie that divides viewers, but it's difficult to fault Laszlo's athletic cinematography.

I Walked With a Zombie (J. Roy Hunt, 43) 
Perhaps Val Lewton's most memorably shot horror production...though so many of them are great, I can see where this debate might get heated.

Ivan the Terrible, Part I: Ivan Grozyni (Andre Moskvin and Eduard Tisse, 44) 
A czar at his most insane and powerful, with horror movie lighting accentuating his most terrifying aspects. 
 

Ivan the Terrible, Part II: The Boyars' Plot (Andre Moskvin and Eduard Tisse, 58) 
The terror continues, with brief glimpses of this monster in full color.

Ivan's Childhood (Vadim Yusov, 62) 
Completely beautiful with every single shot...

I Vitelloni (Otello Martelli, 52) 
The bridge between Rossellini-inspired realism and Fellini-inspired dreaminess.
 

Jaws (Bill Butler, 75) 
Anyone who can make this on-set disaster look as convincing as this, with its underwater photography, its often questionable special effects and such, deserves some big-time credit.  So many shots here are historically valuable!  

 

Jean De Florette  (Bruno Nuytten, 86) 
With this and the sequel Manon of the Spring, Nuytten and director Claude Berri build a world perfectly colored and framed. 

JFK (Robert Richardson, 91)
With all the formats--8mm, 16mm, 35 mm, black-and-white and color--there is nothing out there (outside of Stone's superior Natural Born Killers) like this. 

Jigoku (Mamoru Morita, 60) 
Hell, in all its ridiculous horror.  

Joan of Arc (Joseph Valentine, William V. Skall, and Winton Hoch, 48) 
Heroism, beautifully captured.  

Johnny Guitar (Harry Stradling, 54)  
Insane coloring, for an equally insane narrative.  

Judgment at Nuremberg (Ernest Laszlo, 61)
With its often documentary feel (and it's a groundbreaker in this realm), Laszlo's camera performs some amazing feats, including an immutable zooming jump from German to English language. 
 

Jules and Jim (Raoul Coutard, 62) 
A menage a trois most excitingly portrayed. 
 

Juliet of the Spirits (Gianni Di Venanzo, 65) 
Federico Fellini's tremendously loving tribute to his muse, Giulietta Masina.   

10 Scary Possibilities for Halloween

For Halloween, 2010, I offer clips (and, thus, suggestions) of the most mortifying cinematic offerings out there. Gird your loins, and here we go (and spoilers abound so BE WARNED):


JIGOKU (Nobuo Nakagawa, 60).
It's scarier without the subtitles, this unbelievable preview for a bloody tour through Hell. Watch it only if you're brave.


QUATERMASS AND THE PIT/FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH (Roy Ward Baker, 67).
This trailer chronicles the path to an ultimate destination for the Brits' famed Professor Quatermass, finally faced with more than he can handle in this masterpiece of sci-fi/horror from the recently deceased Hammer veteran Roy Ward Baker. This is a must for any horror fan.


THEATER OF BLOOD (Douglas Hickox, 73).
A truly magnificent fan-made trailer for Vincent Price's greatest performance on screen. Michael J. Lewis' brilliant theme music takes center stage here. See this one for smarts, laffs, and scares.


HOUR OF THE WOLF (Ingmar Bergman, 68).
A brilliantly constructed trailer for Bergman's one true horror film. As you might expect, there's nothing like it out there.


RINGU (Hideo Nakata, 98).
The incredible cursed videotape, in its entirety.


THE OLD DARK HOUSE (James Whale, 32).
Houseguest Gloria Stuart is put through the ringer by nasty Eva Moore in this radical scare scene from horror master James Whale.


TARGETS (Peter Bogdanovich, 68).
Boris Karloff, as near-retirement horror star Byron Orlock, tells a frightening tale. In its last moments, director/writer Bogdanovich told Karloff to concentrate on the idea of his own death. Karloff did the scene in one take, to crew applause. His final seconds here, pondering his own upcoming time in the grave, cemented Karloff's standing as the continuing King of Horror.


AT MIDNIGHT, I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL (Jose Mojica Marins, 64).
An opening credits sequence that'll curdle the blood before the story even begins. That Coffin Joe! What a character!


PHANTASM (Don Coscarelli, 79).
While prowling the Morningside Funeral Home, Michael Baldwin tries to escape from the mysterious, evil Silver Sphere. It may look funny here, but it's horrifying in the context of this relentlessly unsettling film.


IMAGES (Robert Altman, 72).
Susannah York won Best Actress at Cannes in '72 for playing this extremely unbalanced author on holiday with her husband...or...whoever it is. You'll know immediately this is a horror film: simply listen to John Williams' singular, Oscar-nominated score. This movie, and York's screams, will prevent you from sleep.