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This isn’t a usual top ten list. In fact there are only 9 films here. There have been many outstanding films made about cinema with the usual suspects being Cinema Paradiso, Kaagaz ke Phool, The Bad and the Beautiful, Day for Night, RKO 281, Day of the Locust, The Player, Millennium Actress etc etc. These films aren’t on this list.

I felt that since cinema is manufactured reality the only format that would show what is the real human cost of making a film would be a documentary. The films on this list inspire and excite me because they are not hagiographies. Despite the respect and even reverence in some cases towards the subjects, the filmmakers have shown their lives truthfully, warts and all.

Anybody who spends his money to watch a film has the complete right to appreciate or criticize as he sees fit yet it is only a fellow filmmaker who understands what it takes to make a film and what we sacrifice. We aren’t lucky to be working in films. We choose to be here despite everything and we share a kinship that somebody who hasn’t made a 4am call time will never understand.

These are our stories.

American Movie

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” - Calvin Coolidge

We face all sorts of problems like lack of money, time and equipment when making a movie. These problems are for the most part navigable. Some of us also face another problem which is bit more irksome. A complete lack of talent. All of us are convinced that we are geniuses but its not true in most cases. The film is a hilarious yet sobering reminder that a lot of times sheer doggedness and enthusiasm works when talent fails. The world needs its Ed Woods as much it needs its Orson Welles.

The 5 Obstructions

“We are like dwarfs standing upon the shoulders of giants, and so able to see more and see farther than the ancients.” - Bernard of Chartres

Lars von Trier pays homage to his hero and mentor Jorgen Leth by challenging him to remake his seminal short film 5 times with increasingly difficult obstructions. Spanning locations from Havana to Falkland Road this is my all time favorite documentary film by far. The power,beauty and poignancy of the closing VO are only matched by the ones in “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The English Patient”. We owe so much to those who came before us and shined a path for us to walk on.

Overnight

“Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.”
- Aristotle

Troy Duffy had it all. A sleeper cult hit in “The Boondock Saints” and a future which glittered with possibilities. Instead he slowly went mad with power and alienated everyone around him and managed to screw everything up. Instead of being the next best thing he himself nos is stranded in the boondocks.The film is a fascinating study on how success corrupts and makes monsters of us. Unfortunately enough you will find enough examples around you.

Tell them who you are

“No man is a hero to his valet……Or to his son.” - Harold Robbins

For many of us cinema is the focal point of our lives with everything else coming in second place which includes family. But have we ever wondered about the people for whom cinema isn’t the most important thing and in fact resent it for the estrangement it causes ? Haskell Wexler is a legendary figure in the annals of American history. He is as well known for his great body of work as a DP as much as for the films he got fired from which include “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest” and his opposition to the Vietnam War. This film made by Haskell’s son Mark chronicles their troubled relationship he shares with his father. Haskell could never understand how cinema didn’t mean the world to Mark while the only thing that Mark wanted was his father. There is one scene in the film which leaves me wondering at the courage it would have taken to include in the film.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves, from all let this be heard. Some does it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss the brave man with the sword.” - Oscar Wilde

Francis Ford Coppola has two of the greatest films in cinematic history to his credit yet now he is mostly a forgotten figure. In fact from the champagne days of filmmaking ie the 70’s (how I wish I was there) only Spielberg and Lucas have retained their prestige and clout. Watch this film and you will get a crash course on how to self destruct spectacularly and yet make one of the most amazing films of all time.

Voyage in Time

“How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.” - Paul Bowles

Andrei Tarkovsky is chronicled as he prepares to shoot his penultimate film “Nostalghia”. A bit obtuse but fascinating insight into the mind of the man who has been the subject of most debates at FTII.

A.K.

“Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that’s how we’ve got to live.”
Haruki Murakami

One grandmaster profiles another. Chris Marker documents Akira Kurosawa at work while he shoots “Ran”. Enough said.

Lost in La Mancha

“Truly I was born to be an example of misfortune, and a target at which the arrows of adversary are aimed” - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Terry Gilliam has had countless fights with studios over his films with the scrap over “Brazil” being the stuff of legend. I suspect though that nothing had prepared him for the obstacles he had to face over his abortive version of Don Quixote with Johnny Depp. Just shows you can’t win every time.

My Best Fiend

“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.” - William Shakespeare

That Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski shared a tempestuous relationship would be the understatement of the millennium. The two of them tried to kill each other on more than one occasion. If you read what went on during the shoot of “Aguirre: Wrath of God” you’ll be shocked that they managed to even expose any negative, let alone make one of the most awe inspiring films ever. Herzog himself no slouch in the eccentricity department pays tribute to his deceased friend/foe and sheds light on their unique relationship.

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