Top Ten Movies of the 1960s

#1
La Dolce Vita

1960

Written and Directed by: Federico Fellini
Music by: Nino Rota
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg and Anouk Aimée

Translated from Italian La Dolce Vita means "The Sweet Life". This is exactly what the movie is about. It follows tabloid reporter Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) throughout a week in Rome as he chases various women and fills the public need for gossip about the rich and famous. Sounds like all fun and games but its appeal is wearing thin for Marcello. He is beginning to abhor the lifestyle he lives, and the film is really a series of loosely connected episodes which lead to his epiphany that he is wasting his life.

Things start out great for Marcello though. The opening scene of the movie shows a helicopter carrying a giant statue of Jesus for delivery to the Vatican. Trailing behind it in an equally godlike manner are Marcello and his photographers covering the story. They get distracted by a group of women sunbathing on a roof though and loose the story. It's a great introduction which I would love to show, but have been unable to find it on youtube. Anyway, it's the highpoint of Marcello in the movie, and his life dips from then on. One of the most memorable of his encounters is Swedish actress Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) whom is there to interview. Marcello becomes enthralled with her and becomes helpless:



After this episode Marcello begins to question whether he is actually living 'the sweet life'. This is a point driven home with a surprise visit from his father. Having not seen him in years and with his father eager to see what Marcello's life is like in Rome he takes him out on the town. An act they witness at a nightclub however shows Marcello's inner feelings of sadness and hopelessness, even as his Dad enjoys himself with his excessive drinking and flirting:



What I love about this scene is true of what I love about all Fellini movies: there's a vaudevillian feel to it. Scenes such as this one show comical characters with tragic faces. Another similarity of most Fellini films is their setting. It has been said that all Fellini films take place at night. It's also true that most of them take place in Italy (usually Rome) as well. La Dolce Vita is a great example of this as it showcases Rome's nightlight vividly. To me, that is where much of the appeal comes from in the movie and is why it's one of my all time favourite movies. At night as when the most interesting characters come out. At night is when the best stories are formed. Night though must always come to an end. Marcello discovers this after one particularly wild party in a friend's house. Exhausted from the lifestyle that he is beginning to dread, him and the other party goers discover a dying beached whale on the coast. He is called to by a beautiful, innocent, young woman who he met earlier in the week. He is unable (or unwilling) to hear her though and returns to his crew and thus refuses to listen to his inner questioning of his lifestyle:



The movie shows perfectly what life was like in urban Italy at that time. It was finally getting over the post-war crash and experiencing a kind of economic boom. Hence the rise of mass-consumerism which gives Marcello a job printing trash tabloids of news nobody needs to know. In questioning the morality of his own lifestyle, Marcello is also questioning the morality of the wider Italian society. A society which is beginning to care less and less about their fellow man and starting to worship false gods. This is most true in the capital and richest city of Rome. There is possibly no movie which shows a city better and more true than La Dolce Vita for Rome. But as I stressed, what it was showing just as much was the time period and the massive transition that Italy and Rome were experiencing.

Now I felt it necessary to give a bit of technical explanation as to why I picked this movie as my favourite of the 1960s but it's difficult. With most of the scenes taking place at night, the lighting is of course top notch as is the cinematography. But there is something which the film seamlessly conveys which just can't be described. Following Marcello through his existential realization is of his own worthlessness is such an incredible journey.

For showing the rampant moral decay prevalent in mass-consumerist societies, La Dolce Vita is in my opinion the greatest movie of the 1960s.

Top Ten Movies of the 1960s

#2
2001: A Space Odyssey

1968

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
Written by: Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke (Based on his Novel)
Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, and William Sylvester

There is so much to discuss with 2001: A Space Odyssey that I have been overwhelmed for the past month and unable to post anything. Due to the difficulty I have decided to admit from the start that I won't be able to provide a decent whole exploration of the movie's themes but just a simple gloss over of why it is so great. That's what this list is meant to do after all, discuss why some films are so great. This gem by Stanley Kubrick is consistently praised as the greatest science fiction film of all time if not the greatest film of all time. It's groundbreaking in not only its special effects but its storytelling.

At its core, 2001: A Space Odyssey is about the 'progress' of mankind. The first scene titled 'Dawn of Man' shows a tribe of apes in a desert who are victimized by other tribes, animals as well as nature itself. However, things change when one ape of the victimized tribe makes a giant leap when he learns how to manipulate his hands to hold a bone and use it as a weapon. With this power, he is able to tame nature and defeat the other tribes paving the way for man's evolutionary project. These apes are shown as our ancient ancestors. A point shown brilliantly in a gigantic jump cut which spans hundreds of thousands of years. As he throws the bone up in the air and it spins the scene changes to a space ship floating in space showing how far humankind has progressed.



But are we really that special? The giant black monolith seen at the beginning of the last scene appears several times in the movie and it is suggested that it was planted on Earth and another one was planted on the moon by other intelligent life in the universe. Kubrick has said that at the time he was making this movie he wa obssessed with his belief that there was other intelligent life in the universe thus this idea is addressed here. Humans may have advanced far enough to explore the immediate space around our planet but as the monolith on the Moon and the mission to Jupiter show, we are still at the mercy of more intelligent beings. With all the stars in the universe and the chances of other life supporting solar systems Kubrick crushes the idea that humankind is something special in the universe. The 'dawn of man' sequence may give some people the feeling that we are special beings chosen by God or nature to explore and conquer but the movie explains that we are just victims of circumstance. Great achievements made sure, but there is nothing innately special about our progress.

Is all of our progress positive? This is another important question posed by the movie. The idea that our progress emanated from the discovery of weaponery immediately suggests that not all of our progress may have been sound. This question is answered by the character of the supercomputer HAL 9000 though. The latest advancement in supercomputers runs all aspects of the Jupiter mission ship. It was created to mimic the human personality as closely as possible and this is why it became such a threat. After its first malfunction in a long series of HAL 9000 computers it exercises human like vanity and greed. Rather than being responsible for tainting the computer system's perfect record it sabtages the whole mission. The scene where Dave (Keir Dullea) disconnects HAL is amazingly tense:



So it's brilliant storytelling and philosophical musings are just one aspect of this movie. The reason that it is a classic is found in its amazing special effects and style. 2001: A Space Odyssey is proof that you can make something look more realistic with models than you can when an inflated CGI special effects budget. The movie came out in 1968 and in my opinion has yet to be outdone in its ability to show was future space exploration might look like. Its so realistic, but also beautiful. The soundtrack was also extremely innovative for its time. There are large memorable scenes of the movie which consist only of the beauty of Kubrick's direction as well as the beauty of the classical music score. The panoramic widecreen allows an even large canvas for Kubrick to paint his masterpiece. Enjoy the master at work, this scene here is one of my personal favourites:

For being the best science fiction movie of all time and influencing all others to come, 2001: A Space Odyssey is in my opinion the 2nd greatest movie of the 1960s.