A film from every year

People always ask me about my favourite films, sometimes in general and sometimes with specifications (best Japanese film, best film with Myrna Loy) and I answer as best as I can. I also like to make lists, as many do. Some frown upon lists, finding them demeaning and distortionous.* And they can be, if done badly or taken too seriously. But as a service to anybody who wonders about my favourites and as an excuse to make lists, they will be a more regular feature on Fredrik on Film from now on. Different kinds of lists, with different aims.

Today's list is chronological, featuring my favourite feature fiction films from (almost) every year since 1913. Before 1913 films were rarely of any great length, and the few that exists I have not seen. Neither have I seen any from 1914, as far as I can recall. (Unfortunately I have seen very few films from the 1910s in general, but those I have seen have in general been good, not least those by Cecil B. DeMille, who is undoubtedly one of the best filmmakers of that decade. Perhaps the best, together with Victor Sjöström.) But here is the list in full. I have tried to choose only one for every year but accept my apologies for those years when it was impossible to do so. It was especially hard in those magical years after World War 2.**

1913 Ingeborg Holm (Victor Sjöström)
1914 ?
1915 Regeneration (Raoul Walsh)
1916 Intolerance (D.W. Griffith)
1917 Thomas Graal’s Best Film (Mauritz Stiller)
1918 Old Wives for New (Cecil B. DeMille)
1919 Don’t Change Your Husband (Cecil B. DeMille)
1920 Erotikon (Mauritz Stiller)
1921 Tol’able David (Henry King)
1922 Phantom (F.W. Murnau) Nosferatu (Murnau)
1923 A Woman in Paris (Charlie Chaplin)
1924 Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton)
1925 Tartuffe (F.W. Murnau)
1926 Faust (F.W. Murnau)
1927 Sunrise (F.W. Murnau)
1928 The Last Command (Josef von Sternberg) A Girl in Every Port (Howard Hawks)
1929 Asphalt (Joe May)
1930 The Big Trail (Raoul Walsh)
1931 M (Fritz Lang)
1932 Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg)
1933 Design for Living (Ernst Lubitsch)
1934 Twentieth Century (Howard Hawks)
1935 Hands Across the Table (Mitchell Leisen) Toni (Jean Renoir)
1936 Partie de campagne (Jean Renoir)
1937 The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey) La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir)
1938 Holiday (George Cukor)
1939 Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir)
1940 His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks)
1941 Stormy Waters aka Remorques (Jean Grémillon)
1942 In Which We Serve (David Lean) Cat People (Jacques Tourneur)
1943 Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock) Changing Trains (Hasse Ekman)
1944 Laura (Otto Preminger)
1945 Brief Encounter (David Lean)
1946 My Darling Clementine (John Ford) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)
1947 Odd Man Out (Carol Reed) Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur) Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger)
1948 The Fallen Idol (Carol Reed) Letter From an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls) Force of Evil (Abraham Polonsky) The Red Shoes (Powell & Pressburger) Rope (Alfred Hitchcock)

The Fallen Idol, with a for Reed typical angle.

1949 The Reckless Moment (Max Ophüls) Gun Crazy (Joseph H. Lewis) The Third Man (Carol Reed) Border Incident (Anthony Mann)
1950 All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
1951 An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli) Bullfighter and the Lady (Budd Boetticher) Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock) The Browning Version (Anthony Asquith)
1952 Casque d’Or (Jacques Becker)
1953 Journey to Italy (Roberto Rossellini)
1954 A Star is Born (George Cukor)
1955 The Big Combo (Joseph H. Lewis)
1956 A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson)
1957 Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick) Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa)
1958 Man of the West (Anthony Mann) Tarnished Angels (Douglas Sirk)
1959 Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks) The 400 Blows (François Truffaut)
1960 Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard) The Apartment (Billy Wilder)
1961 The Hustler (Robert Rossen)
1962 Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean)
1963 The Leopard (Luchino Visconti)
1964 Lilith (Robert Rossen) The Train (John Frankenheimer)
1965 Bunny Lake is Missing (Otto Preminger)
1966 Persona (Ingmar Bergman) Nayak (Satyajit Ray)
1967 Le samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville)
1968 Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone)
1969 The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah)
1970 The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci) Wild Child (François Truffaut) The Adversary (Satyajit Ray)
1971 A Touch of Zen (Hu King)
1972 Junior Bonner (Sam Peckinpah)
1973 The Day of the Jackal (Fred Zinnemann)
1974 Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette)
1975 Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet)
1976 Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese)
1977 Annie Hall (Woody Allen)
1978 Tree of Wooden Clogs (Ermanno Olmi) Fedora (Billy Wilder)
1979 Alien (Ridley Scott) Manhattan (Woody Allen)
1980 Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme) Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese)
1981 Southern Comfort (Walter Hill) Thief (Michael Mann) Blind Chance (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Blind Chance

1982 The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese)
1983 The Big Chill (Lawrence Kasdan) Rumble Fish (Francis Ford Coppola)
1984 A Passage to India (David Lean)
1985 A Room With a View (James Ivory)
1986 Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen)
1987 Hope and Glory (John Boorman)
1988 Chocolat (Claire Denis)
1989 The Unbelievable Truth (Hal Hartley)
1990 Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami) Trust (Hal Hartley)
1991 La belle noiseuse (Jacques Rivette) The Double Life of Veronique (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
1992 Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood) In the Soup (Alexandre Rockwell)
1993 Remains of the Day (James Ivory)
1994 Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai) Quiz Show (Robert Redford)
1995 Heat (Michael Mann)
1996 Nénette et Boni (Claire Denis) Bottle Rocket (Wes Anderson)
1997 Paper Airplanes (Farhad Mehranfar)
1998 After Life (Hirokazu Koreeda)
1999 Three Kings (David O. Russell)
2000 In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai)
2001 Delbaran (Abolfazl Jalili) Millennium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
2002 10 (Abbas Kiarostami)
2003 Café Lumière (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
2004 Collateral (Michael Mann)
2005 Good Night, and Good Luck (George Clooney)
2006 Still Life (Jia Zhangke) I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (Park Chan-wook)
2007 Alexandra (Alexander Sokurov)
2008 The Song of Sparrows (Majid Majidi)
2009 A Serious Man (Ethan & Joel Coen)
2010 Last Night (Massy Tadjedin)

It is perhaps worth pointing out that all films on the list are not equally good. There are many films not listed that are much better than some of those above, that is inevitable. And consequently some directors, such as Raoul Walsh and Wes Anderson, are not represented with the films I think are their best. And before you start writing an angry comment accusing me of dimwitted philistinism because your favourite film is missing, please remember that it is possible I have not seen it, or that it stands as a very close second on its year.

A final note: Murnau's reign in the 1920s is remarkable. He was some artist.

Faust

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*Why is not distortionous a word?
** This was harder than I thought. I got a few films attached to the wrong year and has made adjustments, and some films have been replaced. On some films I have noticed that my sources give different years, such as Gun Crazy (1949 and 1950), Journey to Italy (1953 and 1954) and The Adversary (1970 and 1972). I do not know why that is, but I have had to choose which year to use. Blind Chance was made in 1981 but the Polish censors kept it from being released until 1987.

A selection of Swedish films

As already mentioned, there's a Swedish film festival at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York between April 16 and May 4. As more than 40 films are being shown I thought I give some suggestions on what to focus on for those who haven't got oodles of time.

The films can be divided in to a couple of sub-sections, like

Pre-talkies: Ingeborg Holm (1913) - The Girl in Tails (Flickan i frack 1926)

The classical era: One Night (En natt 1931) - Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället 1957)

Experiments and new waves: Raven's End (Kvarteret Korpen 1963) - A Swedish Love Story (En kärlekshistoria 1969)

Modes of realism: The Emigrants (Utvandrarna 1971) - Children's Island (Barnens ö 1980)

The present day: Four Shades of Brown (Fyra nyanser av brunt 2004) - Sebbe (2010)

Seeing at least one, anyone, from each sub-section would then be a quick crash course on Swedish cinema history.

But to get more depth, here are some suggestions and the reasons for seeing them (I have deliberately left out Bergman's films, not because I don't like them, but because Bergman is well-known as it is):

1) Ingeborg Holm is one of the greatest silent films ever made. It has restrained acting, vivid use of space and depth-of-field and a powerful moving story. It's also an angry film, about the treatment of the poor by the state, which led to a big debate and eventually to some laws being changed. It's also an early film by one of cinema's most important and influential filmmakers, Victor Sjöström.

2) Thomas Graal's Best Film (Thomas Graals bästa film 1917) is a cooperation between Sjöström, Mauritz Stiller and Henrik Jaenzon, three of the six creative forces that made early Swedish cinema such an impressive period (the other three are Henrik's more famous brother Julius Jaenzon, Georg af Klercker and Gustaf Molander), so that should be reason enough to watch it. But it's also a fun, modernist film about films, dreams and make-believe. It stands together with Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. (1924) as an early, playful, investigation into what cinema is and can do.

3) One Night is a formal experiment by Gustaf Molander and his constant cinematographer Åke Dahlqvist. It might be called the odd film out, both in Molander's career and Swedish cinema of the time, but as an experiment it's bold and interesting. The inspiration comes from the Russians, Eisenstein and Pudovkin.

4) Karl-Fredrik Reigns (Karl-Fredrik regerar 1934) is less interesting as a film than as a historic document about the Social Democratic mood in Sweden at the time, with the building of the welfare state and what the Prime minister Per-Albin Hansson called "folkhemmet" (literally "the people's home" but perhaps more accurately "the people's society"). A number of films were made to sell the story about the "folkhem", more often than not directed by Gustaf Edgren. But there's also good acting so it's enjoyable as a film too.

5) A Woman's Face (En kvinnas ansikte 1938) is more typical Molander than One Night, and one of many films he made with Ingrid Bergman. And Åke Dahlqvist is the cinematographer. The look of Molander/Dahlqvist's films is usually sombre, with expressive use of heavy shadows and pools of darkness, and En kvinnas ansikte is not an exception. It's also typical for Molander to be about a woman's face, a woman's psyche. Before Bergman Molander was the preeminent "women's director" (whatever that is) in Swedish cinema.

6) Changing Trains (Ombyte av tåg 1943) is the first Ekman film in this retrospective, and it's also the first of Ekman's great films, the first of his theatre films. It's also a deeply autobiographic film, with Ekman playing more or less a version of himself, and Sonja Wigert playing a character that's a thinly disguised portrait of Ekman's long lost love Tutta Rolf. It's also so happens that it's one of the most moving of Swedish films. That Ekman was influenced by French poetic realism can also be seen.

7) The Girl With Hyacinths (Flicka och hyacinter 1950) was Ekman's own favourite among his films, and it was Bergman's favourite too. In fact, it's probably most people's Ekman favourite. Ekman was an actor's director, but he was also very cinematic, perhaps the most naturally gifted visual storyteller Sweden had ever had, and these two qualities are both clearly visible in The Girl With Hyacinths. The opening sequence, from the scene at the party to the arrival of the boy on a tricycle, could be taught in film schools. Like Changing Trains, it's also biographical, but in a more complex way, and can be seen as a comment on Ekman's and Eva Henning's relationship, with Ekman letting the various men The Girl encounters represent different sides of him. It's also a landmark of sorts in Swedish queer cinema.

8) Miss Julie (Fröken Julie 1951) was one of the films that showed the world that Swedish cinema again was a force to be reckoned with, after winning the Palmé d'or in Cannes (together with Miracle in Milan (Miracolo a Milano 1951). Miss Julie is Alf Sjöberg's version of Strindberg's play, and it's a tour-de-force of both acting and mise-en-scène, where the past and the present are shown in the same frame but on different levels in depth. Like Bergman, Sjöberg moved back and forth between the screen and the stage and he was one of the most inventive and artistic of filmmakers, and this arguably is his masterpiece.

9) Kisses & Hugs (Puss och kram 1967) is a film about men, women, and their relationships. It's directed by Jonas Cornell (who has said he was inspired by Hawks's Hatari! (1962) so naturally I like it) and it's part of the new wave of Swedish cinema, together with the likes of Bo Widerberg, Vilgot Sjöman and Jan Troell. This is Cornell's first film, but after a few inventive films he shifted to TV and more commercial productions.

10) A Swedish Love Story (En kärlekshistoria 1969) is Roy Andersson's first feature and I believe it is his best. It's unmistakingly Andersson, but it isn't as stiff and hasn't the annoyingly stylised theatricality of his later work (and no white faces either). What it has though is both a tender love story between two teenagers and a sad portrait of their parents, or rather the adult world. Adulthood is here a different country, and it has so much agony and despair it's painful to watch.

11) Man on the Roof (Mannen på taket 1976) is a police thriller, a Swedish version of French Connection (1971) or Madigan (1967). It's deceptively slow, after an initial violent murder, but works its way methodically and with a great attention to detail to the sudden outburst of violence in the second half, when the usually so peaceful Stockholm becomes a city under siege, terrorized by a heavily armed sniper. It's worth remembering though that Sweden, and Stockholm in particular, in the 1970s had seen several terrorist attacks, hijackings and spectacular bank robberies which had somewhat shattered the illusion of being at peace. Since the location shooting and realism is so striking, it's to this day difficult to walk the streets around Odenplan without looking up towards the rooftops.

12) The Girl (Flickan 2009) was to my eyes last year's best Swedish film. A haunting and ethereal story about a little girl left alone in a house during a few summer weeks. It moves between dream and reality, and paints a not particularly flattering portrait of self-absorbed adults. But unlike A Swedish Love Story it also has the courage to show that children can be equally cruel and corrupted. But perhaps the best thing about it is its cinematography (by Hoyte van Hoytema, the most celebrated cinematographer in Sweden today), which is primarily what gives it its haunting and ethereal quality.

13) The King of Ping Pong (Ping-pongkingen 2008) was short-filmmaker Jens Jonsson's long anticipated first feature film. As was only to be expected it is beautifully shot, in several shades of white. But after a while that can become monotonous, and the story isn't particularly original or involving. So the main reason I included it here is that unlike any of the other films, it's set in the far north of Sweden, with endless vistas of frozen lakes, snow-covered mountains and wide white plains.

There are a number of important female directors in Sweden, but only two has made it to this retrospective, Karin Swanström and Mai Zetterling. I haven't mentioned their films here because I haven't seen Swanström's The Girl in Tails and I don't particularly like Mai Zetterling's films (mostly because I feel that Zetterling is spending too much time and effort on editing and fancy camera work in a way that doesn't enhance the films but rather gets in the way). But she's still an important (feminist) filmmaker and deserves to be seen and discussed.

Also, the films I've listed aren't the only good ones, many of the others are equally great, but I had to draw the line somewhere. But if you have the time, don't miss out the third of the Ekman films being shown, The Banquet (Banketten 1948). It's possibly Ekman's most cruel and shocking film, shot like a noir with spider webs of shadows engulfing the sadomasochist couple in the centre. But good as it is, it's not as important as Changing Trains and The Girl With Hyacinths.

Sjöström and Bergman

It's a wellknown fact that Victor Sjöström was an important figure in Ingmar Bergman's life, and not only artistically.

When Bergman was a young boy, his father took him to see Sjöström's Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage 1921) in a church, and the screening had an immense effect on young Ingmar. The film, which Sjöström wrote, directed and starred in, is based on a story by Selma Lagerlöf. It's about David Holm, an alcoholic and abusive man who on New Year's Eve dies, and is collected by a servant of Death, riding in to town in an old carriage. Then, in flashbacks, David Holm's sorry story is told.

Here's a clip from the beginning of the film:

The special importance Körkarlen had for Bergman can be seen not only in the references to it in his films, but also in the fact that in 1998, Bergman directed P-O Enquist's play Bildmakarna (The Image Makers) for, first, the stage and then for TV. It's about Selma Lagerlöf, Victor Sjöström, Tora Teje and Julius Jaenzon and the making of Körkarlen.

When Bergman became a director Sjöström was head of production at SF, Svensk Filmindustri, where Bergman was employed. The actors in Bergman's first film Kris (Crisis 1945) came to Sjöström and complained about the fact that Bergman was intolerable on set, angry and cruel, so Sjöström took him for a walk around the studio sets, trying to talk some sense into him, moderately successful.

Then, five years later, Bergman gave Sjöström a part in his film Till glädje (To Joy 1950). Sjöström was rather good, but the film in itself isn't particularly striking, although it can be seen as a dress rehearsal for Bergman's first truly great film, Sommarlek (Summer Interlude 1951).

The most famous collaboration between Sjöström and Bergman is of course their last film together, Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries 1957), where Sjöström is playing the lead. It's a wonderful performance, full of warmth, depth and wisdom. He carries the film from start to finish, and positively glows.

He was, though, already old and fragile, and in the last two years before he died January 1960 he moved back and forth to hospital.

Körkarlen is perhaps the film of Sjöström's which had the most profound effect on Bergman, but others films of his are equally good, or perhaps even better. That's especially the case with the early film Ingeborg Holm (1913), which is very moving and socially daring, as well as with a clever, complex use of deep focus, and a film Sjöström did during his successful time in Hollywood, He Who Gets Slapped (1924), a cruel story of humiliation, with a circus setting, which quite possibly influenced Bergman, and not only before making Gycklarnas afton (Sawdust and Tinsel / The Night of the Clowns / The Naked Night, 1953).

A book could and should be written on Bergman and Sjöström. I might do it myself some day. For the moment though, I leave you with this clip from He Who Gets Slapped:

Archival stuff

I'm currently working at the Swedish Film Institute's archives in Rotebro, just outside of Stockholm. Today I browsed through Bergman's personal film collection, which he had in his home at Fårö. A lot of Chaplin and Keaton films, various Fellini films and many other things. A good selection, although not particularly surprising. But among the films are also a lot of animated short films by the Swedish cartoonist Victor Bergdahl, from 1915 and 1916. Bergman was a fan.

A new addition to the archives is Julius Jaenzon's camera. Jaenzon is of course the inventive Swedish cinematographer from the 1910s and 1920s, who worked with Victor Sjöström on, among other films, Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage 1921). It's a special feeling, touching it. Although it doesn't look like much:

Here's a film by Victor Bergdahl. It has some rather crude stereotypical portraits of black Africans in the end. It's a symbol of its old age, although it's got a sweet ending, with the Swedish sailor and the African princess kissing romantically at sunset.