But then I noticed within a couple of pages two films that I thought it would be a shame to omit from these reflections. One was Babette’s Feast, and the other was Wings of Desire. They could not be more contrasting. The former is basically a chamber piece in which the lovely actress Stephane Audran, under the direction of Gabriel Axel, comes to Jutland, on the Danish coast, settles in and begins preparing for the eponymous meal, which contrasts the harsh lives of the locals with the sumptuous banquet she has in mind. Never in the history of film has the simple act of eating been so resonantly—forgive me, so deliciously—portrayed. It’s difficult for a movie of this kind, aiming at a kind of gentle warmth, not to descend to the sappy, but it never does. Maybe it’s a minor pleasure, but it seems to me close to perfection, especially in its avoidance of sentiment, easy or otherwise. There is a briskness about it that keeps it on track.
Wings of Desire could not stand in sharper contrast. Directed by Wim Wenders and starring Peter Falk, it is a bold, bustling fantasy and, I think, the best of the many movies about angels. It is about a trapeze artist who fears falling. It is also, from time to time, about the need people have to touch and to feel, and to be hopeful. There are some reflections on the Holocaust and other big topics as well, though they are handled with deftness and a sort of slow-rolling charm. This is a film that wins you over patiently but, finally, definitively. It obviously has something serious on its mind, but it is, as well, an easeful movie, good-natured as can be.
I am playing catch-up ball with these two movies. Nearing the end of this book, I’m very conscious of its many sins of commission and omission—so many movies left out. It could easily be twice its length. I mean these two movies to symbolize all those near misses, the movies that, in years to come, I know I’ll wish I had the time, patience and critical energy to contend with.
There’s another point to be made about these movies. It has to do with the change in the ways movies are marketed nowadays. In the fairly recent past, they came out in a predictable way. A picture like Babette’s Feast, in particular, simply arrived in a few theaters, got some good reviews and made its way around the country in a fairly halting fashion. No big deal—and, generally, no big profits, either. Films of this kind were strictly a small-time business.
In recent decades, that changed. Such films became events. Critical commitments—audience interest, as well—to some of them became more excited, more dedicated. For a fortunate few, it is not too much to say that they became touchstones. You could not count yourself a true cineaste if you had not seen and had a fairly complex opinion about films of the kind I have singled out here. They did not, of course, compete with the big commercial releases, but they won the awards and dominated serious conversations about film—and, in time, film history as well.
I don’t know if the movies, as a whole, are the better for this development. It seems to me the ratio of good films to bad remains pretty constant, though they are fewer in number than was formerly the case. And we can say their range is wider than it was in the not-too-distant past. Neither of the films I’ve cited here—and there are many more like them—would have been made at all a few decades ago. This is, I think, a good thing (though much broader cultural trends play a large part in this, naturally). We get the movies the culture, in its mysterious ways, decides we deserve.
I am grudgingly content with this situation. Come right down to it, what choice do I (or does anyone) have in the matter? Movies simply are. You live with what they give you, or you lose interest in them, as most people finally do.
Let me end with a curiosity. I’ve always been a rather pedestrian dreamer—at least in comparison with those friends who have opted to share their nighttime reveries with me. Some of their unconscious activities have been prodigious. I have noticed, however, while working on this book, that my dreams have become somewhat more interesting. They have become more movie-oriented. They have film plots and they feature movie stars. They do not ape real movies; they are more generic than that. They are not scary; on the whole, they are rather lightsome. This is the first book I’ve written that has obliged me to think broadly about a wide range of films, rather than about the works of a single movie figure—a director or a star—and it has turned out to be on the whole rather a playful business. I hope I have singled out a sufficiency of sobersided movies to keep this enterprise respectable. The estimable Kenneth Turan recently managed a task similar to mine with a svelte listing of thirty-five movies. I admire his discipline. And most of his choices.
My interest in current movies has diminished. History preoccupies me more than was formerly the case. Which may mean that I’m about to put myself out of business. Which would be a shame, I guess—it’s been such a pleasant way to spend my time (or waste it). Not that I worry much about it. Mortality will take care of that issue soon enough. Meantime, I hope Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck and Mitchum and a whole lot of others will keep turning up in my dream theater. I’m always glad to see them.
Where movies are concerned, I’m obviously a lifer. They haunt my reveries. I never had a choice in this matter. Movies dominate more of our dream space than we care to admit. There is no phenomenon that does so in quite the way they do. There are people who are impervious to them, of course. I am clearly not one of them. I do not expect to become one of them. I expect, in fact, to be going to a movie the day before I die. Why not? They are a harmless addiction. Except when they are not; then they are instructive in ways that can be wondrous. I am grateful to them—let’s leave it at that.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Jonathan Segal, Victoria Pearson, Meghan Houser, David Thomson, Kent Jones, and Erika Schickel.
A Note About the Author
Richard Schickel is a film critic, documentary filmmaker, and movie historian. His books include Conversations with Scorsese; Clint Eastwood: A Biography; Intimate Strangers: The Culture of Celebrity in America; and D. W. Griffith: An American Life. His documentaries include Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin; Woody Allen: A Life in Film; and Shooting War, about combat cameramen in World War II. He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and was awarded the British Film Institute Book Prize, the Maurice Bessy Prize for film criticism, and the William K. Everson Award for his work in film history.
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