I had thought of trying to come up with a Christmas list, but..... in that category, I fear, the choices are severely limited and all a bit obvious. In fact, I start getting stumped after the thoroughly charming old 'Do you believe in Santa?' classic Miracle On 34th Street (I'm thinking of the black & white original, of course; I've never seen the later remake). I'm not a big fan of A Christmas Carol (Dickens at his most gloopily over-sentimental!), although the blackly funny Bill Murray update of the story, Scrooged, is one of the few modern Christmas films that I enjoy. I haven't managed to warm to It's A Wonderful Life, either. In fact, it's probably my least favourite Frank Capra film: mawkish and far too long. I know it's become a Christmas staple for Americans, repeated on TV every year and reverentially watched by entire families; but we Brits don't have that sentimental history with the film. To my knowledge, it has only ever been shown on British TV once (at least, up until the late '80s or early '90s, which was the one and only time I got to see it).
So, discarding a Christmas theme (and prompted by the weather, which has just turned brass monkeys here in Beijing again!), I thought I'd instead offer a list of the coldest films I know.
The best COLD films ever made
Nanook of the North
(Dir. Robert J. Flaherty, 1922)
The Gold Rush
(Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1925)
Scott of the Antarctic
(Dir. Charles Frend, 1948)
The Savage Innocents
(Dir. Nicholas Ray, 1960)
[Anthony Quinn as an Inuit is a bit cheesy, but it's a well-made quasi-documentary about life in north Alaska.]
The Red Tent
(Dir. Mikhail Kalatozov, 1969)
[This all-star international co-production is, I fear, largely forgotten now, but it is one of the most gripping Arctic survival films I have seen. It tells the true story of the Italian general Umberto Nobile's (Peter Finch) doomed attempt in 1928 to become the first man to fly an airship to the North Pole. Overcome by bad weather, the airship crashed on the ice-cap. Eventually, Nobile and some of his crew were rescued, but many others perished, including some of those who tried to mount rescue missions; the famed polar explorer Roald Amundsen (Sean Connery) disappeared without trace while trying to reach Nobile.]
McCabe & Mrs Miller
(Dir. Robert Altman, 1971)
[Surely the coldest of all Westerns?]
Jeremiah Johnson
(Dir. Sydney Pollack, 1972)
[This very nearly made it into my 'favourite Westerns' list last month; but I suppose I think of it more as a wilderness survival tale than a classic Western.]
Dersu Uzala
(Dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1975)
[Probably the best film in this selection, and also perhaps the coldest; shot partly on location in Siberia.]
The Thing
(Dir. John Carpenter, 1982)
["Man is the warmest place to hide!" said the posters. Carpenter's canny blend of Alien and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers is one of the best horror films ever made. The Antarctic location creates an overwhelming atmosphere of claustrophobia and paranoia.]
Pathfinder
(Dir. Nils Gaup, 1987)
[An old Lapp legend vividly brought to life, this is a compellingly simple little film. Though there are others on this list that might make you feel more of a chill in your bones, this is almost certainly the film that was actually the coldest to make. I think it is the only film to have been shot entirely on location within the Arctic Circle; and I gather it was quite a problem to stop the film-stock freezing in the camera! IMDB tells me there was a Hollywood remake of it last year - I am curious, but also filled with trepidation. You shouldn't mess with a classic.]
Fargo
(Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen, 1995)
A Simple Plan
(Dir. Sam Raimi, 1998)
[I actually rather prefer this to Fargo. One of the best - and bleakest - thrillers of the last few decades.]
Shackleton
(Dir. Charles Sturridge, 2002)
[A two-part TV movie made for the UK's Channel 4, this is rather too long for a regular feature film, and rather more modest in its production values than we might hope for in a cinema film. Nevertheless, it's a thrilling re-enactment of what is surely the most awe-inspiring of all tales of survival in the Antarctic.]
Touching The Void
(Dir. Kevin Macdonald, 2003)
[One of the best dramatised documentaries ever made, a heart-breakingly intense re-telling of the ordeal of a pair of British climbers tackling a remote Andean peak in the 1980s. There is one point at which the main protagonist, Joe Simpson, knows that his life depends on his ability to thread one loop of rope through another. It should be a simple enough task, especially for such an experienced climber; but there's 20 degrees of windchill and his hands have stiffened into clumsy claws. Watching him try and fail again and again to thread that rope-loop is just agonizing for the viewer - your identification with the predicament is total.]
Eight Below
(Dir. Frank Marshall, 2006)
[Yes, I know, I had low expectations of this when I first heard of it, expected it to be very twee and Disney; but, in fact, this story of a team of sled-dogs on an Antarctic research station who are abandoned to fend for themselves when the winter storms arrive early one year is utterly absorbing - and unquestionably very, very cold.]
Brrrrrrrr.........
15 comments:
Miracle On 34th Street (bah humbug) is "thoroughly charming" but A Christmas Carol is "gloopily over-sentimental"? Shame on you.
But I like your list of chillers. I saw A Simple Plan for the first time the other day (on TV) and agree it's superb, though I would say not superior to Fargo, which is funny as well as chilling.
I thought you might challenge me on that, you old curmudgeon.
It's ages since I've seen Miracle, but I did find the level of sentimentality acceptable - I think you can get away with a lot more in a film than in a book.
And A Christmas Carol is SO over-the-top. We don't want our villains redeemed, Dickens, you fool! We don't want Tiny Tim to live. Frankly, the world would probably be better off without any of the criminally fecund Cratchit family.
I wonder if Mr Dickens ever foresaw that the most enduring legacy of this story would be the popularity of the catchphrase "Bah, humbug!"?
I was tempted to add the mesmerizing opening dream sequence set among the Inuits in Kusturica's marvellous Arizona Dream - but that is only one scene in the film.
I might have more affection for Fargo if it weren't a Coen brothers film - it just seems to have so much less depth and coherence to it than their best work (that interlude with the crazy stalker classmate - what's that all about?). Mostly it just seems to be about how staggeringly dim Minnesotans are (Marge isn't exactly a genius, but she seems so compared to everyone else in the story).
It's not often you see a really grim story done completely straight these days: that's what appealed to me so much about A Simple Plan. Sometimes, you just want thinks to be black, not blackly funny. I think the Coens might have lost that knack - if they ever had it.
'Thinks' in that last comment should, of course, have been 'things'.
Ugh, sleep-deprivation again!
I think Stalingrad, by the people who bought you Das Boot should be on the list.
Yes, undoubtedly very cold. It just didn't impress me that much as a film, I'm afraid. (Yes, I know, more heresy.)
I remember seeing a trailer for Mediterraneo years ago which included the tag-line "From the people who brought you Cinema Paradiso...."
Well, it wasn't the same director, or any of the same cast (or technical crew, as far as I could discern) - nor even the same production company. So, I could only conclude that our husky voiceover man meant "the Italians".
When you say "the people who brought you Das Boot", Cowboy, do you just mean "the Germans"??
I have a soft spot for the Alastair Sim version of Scrooge in 'A Christmas Carol,' and absolutely no time for any other portrayal.
God, I haven't seen that for years and years.
I love Alastair Sim - but he's a bit too cuddly to play Scrooge, I think. Can't remember anything about the rest of the film.
Nightmare Before Christmas is great too. But after that, I do run out of inspiration. People keep recommending Bad Santa to me, but I've never seen it.
I always thought it was the same director - apparently not. I am truly shocked you don't like it, though. It's a stunning film.
Maybe it comes over better on a big screen, Cowboy. I only ever got to see it on DVD. I didn't say it was bad, just disappointing. I should give it another go sometime, to see if it improves on second viewing.
There's a problem, I think, with foreign films in a genre like this having unfamiliar actors (and not being able to enjoy the dialogue firsthand compounds this): it's difficult to recognise them or start to identify them. At least if it's Tom Hanks and Matt Damon, most people are probably going to be rooting for Tom Hanks to survive, most people are probably going to be rooting for Matt Damon to die; but either way, you're going to have an opinion; and you're not going to forget who they are in a hurry. I'm afraid I just never got to care about any of the characters in this.
Also, there was a disappointment of expectations, because so many people had told me this was good. I was hoping for a lot, and found it in fact rather average. I've read many much more compelling stories about Stalingrad, both in fiction and non-fiction.
Also, while I appreciate the choice to tell a story from the ordinary soldier's point of view, where everything does seem chaotic and pointless and you never really know much about the 'big picture', I don't think it's impossible to combine that approach with a bit more of a strategic overview. I felt I didn't really learn anything about the Battle of Stalingrad from this film (except that a lot of people froze to death); we didn't even really see very much of the fighting. It was largely just the rambling misadventures of a few soldiers trying to desert.
What you list as the negative points are, on reflection, what I liked about the movie. It's not a military epic, and doesn't try to be. I like the chaos; I like that you don't learn about the battle; I like that you don't see a big picture.
In particular I like that there aren't heroes in a typical Hollywood way. To me it showed the meaningless nature of the overall fight to the individuals involved. It's not about winning. It's about surviving.
Yes, I see the appeal of that approach to the subject. I just don't think it's all that unique, and I don't think it was all that well done in this film.
But maybe it deserves another look.
Anyway, Happy Christmas. I hope you'll get to have a little fun after work.
I feel I might perhaps have included the film version of A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich (Dir. Caspar Wrede, 1970) here. Tom Courtenay in the title role. Very, very bleak.
Although I remember the overwhelming impression being one of dark more than cold.
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