Movie Month: Movies About Movies
For the final day of Movie Month, I'm listing my choices for top ten examples of film-makers making films about films and the making of films. Not necessarily in order of preference.
1. Singin' In The Rain: The transition from silent to talkie, in a musical within a musical.
2. Ed Wood: Sure, everyone talks about the world's best filmmakers. Ed Wood gives equal time to one of the worst. Hilarious. Wonderful performance by Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi.
3. Day For Night (La Nuit Americaine): Francois Truffaut's simple account of the making of a movie, the technical difficulties involved, and the personal troubles of the cast and crew.
4. Childstar: Written & directed by Don McKellar, who plays a studio employee assigned to watch over an out-of-control 12-year-old actor in town to make a movie. He becomes concerned the boy's being exploited by the film industry.
5. Sunset Boulevard: Needs no introduction. 'I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille' is a well-known catch-phrase even to people who've never seen the movie. Brilliant.
6. RKO 281. The slightly nasty story of the making of Citizen Kane.
7. Shadow Magic: Set in Beijing in 1902, the movie deals with the introduction of moving pictures to China, and the resulting culture clash. Light, enjoyable story with a romantic subplot.
8. Purple Rose Of Cairo: Movie characters leave their film and enter the real world. Funny and poignant.
9. The Player: Directed by Robert Altman. The central story is a blackmail plot, but most of the movie is spent gently mocking Hollywood.
10. Ararat: Atom Egoyan has made some great movies about the nature of truth, contrasting viewpoints, etc. In Ararat, the discrepancy is between those who remember or acknowledge the Armenian genocide of 1915, and those who deny it ever happened. It's a movie within a movie, about a young man involved in the making of a film about the genocide, and how it affects his life.
Bonus: Books about movies:
Non-fiction: The Celluloid Closet by Vito Russo. How certain people were dealt with by almost a century of films.
Fiction: Remake by Connie Willis. An entertaining short novel by one of the best science fiction writers on earth. It's set in a time when technology finally allows movie studios to dispense with live actors altogether, and just play with digital images.
1. Singin' In The Rain: The transition from silent to talkie, in a musical within a musical.
2. Ed Wood: Sure, everyone talks about the world's best filmmakers. Ed Wood gives equal time to one of the worst. Hilarious. Wonderful performance by Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi.
3. Day For Night (La Nuit Americaine): Francois Truffaut's simple account of the making of a movie, the technical difficulties involved, and the personal troubles of the cast and crew.
4. Childstar: Written & directed by Don McKellar, who plays a studio employee assigned to watch over an out-of-control 12-year-old actor in town to make a movie. He becomes concerned the boy's being exploited by the film industry.
5. Sunset Boulevard: Needs no introduction. 'I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille' is a well-known catch-phrase even to people who've never seen the movie. Brilliant.
6. RKO 281. The slightly nasty story of the making of Citizen Kane.
7. Shadow Magic: Set in Beijing in 1902, the movie deals with the introduction of moving pictures to China, and the resulting culture clash. Light, enjoyable story with a romantic subplot.
8. Purple Rose Of Cairo: Movie characters leave their film and enter the real world. Funny and poignant.
9. The Player: Directed by Robert Altman. The central story is a blackmail plot, but most of the movie is spent gently mocking Hollywood.
10. Ararat: Atom Egoyan has made some great movies about the nature of truth, contrasting viewpoints, etc. In Ararat, the discrepancy is between those who remember or acknowledge the Armenian genocide of 1915, and those who deny it ever happened. It's a movie within a movie, about a young man involved in the making of a film about the genocide, and how it affects his life.
Bonus: Books about movies:
Non-fiction: The Celluloid Closet by Vito Russo. How certain people were dealt with by almost a century of films.
Fiction: Remake by Connie Willis. An entertaining short novel by one of the best science fiction writers on earth. It's set in a time when technology finally allows movie studios to dispense with live actors altogether, and just play with digital images.