The Muriels Hall of Fame: Lawrence of Arabia (1962, David Lean)

"The timing of my being asked to write about Lawrence of Arabia for the Muriels Hall of Fame is perfect, as I had the opportunity to see it on the big screen for the first time recently. It is the essential theatrical experience that I'd heard and assumed it is, its images overwhelming and immersive. Our introduction to Sherif Ali, a barely perceptible black speck on the horizon that gradually reveals itself to be a man on a camel, is astonishing when viewed in a dark theater. It's an image that director David Lean repeats throughout the film - characters appearing and disappearing into the distance, dwarfed by the vast expense of desert and sky - and for good reason, as it never loses any of its power. Though Lawrence of Arabia features explosions and violent battle scenes, some of its most powerful moments rely on silence and image of a small figure making his way across vast expanses of desert, struggling not only to survive but to write his own destiny.

"What makes Lawrence of Arabia particularly unusual for a prestigious, award-winning epic is that the spectacle is entirely at the service of, and even an illustration of, its protagonist's inner life. At once a hero, a leader, an exhibitionist and a masochist, Lawrence sees the desert as the manifestation of his own romantic, self-made identity. But the understated tragedy of the movie is the way that reality repeatedly undercuts his dream of truly becoming a leader in his adopted culture; Lawrence imagines himself as the Arabs' liberator, ignoring his actual part in strengthening the role of the British empire in the region. By the film's end, he's outlived his usefulness for both his hereditary and adopted cultures; for all that he's experienced, he remains incomplete. It's as if he, and the audience with him, are waking from a dream that had to end. Still, what an amazing dream it is."

~ Andrew Bemis

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The Muriels Hall of Fame: Yojimbo (1961, Akira Kurosawa)

"When you spend your life chasing after cinematic thrills, there are certain inevitable regrets. Invariably, one of the biggest is that you are a prisoner of the particular era you inhabit. It automatically relegates certain experiences to the realm of scholarship, rather than just going to the movies. There are certain things I am only ever going to be able to see as filtered through the mists of time. Much like many other contributors and readers here, I would give my eye teeth to be able to have certain experiences first-hand -- the seismic shifts from silents to talkies and from academy ratio to widescreen; regular Saturday afternoon matinees complete with cartoons, newsreels and serials; ten cent movie tickets; being knocked from complacency by the French and Czech new waves, and on and on. My list, probably much like yours, is endless.

"This is not to say that there aren’t rewards for making discoveries the way I have. I think I belong to the very last generation that had to really dig, do the work, read/make ‘zines and haunt libraries and repertory houses to find these things. We were the last generation that came of age before the Internet made everything instantly available, taking away some of the thrill of the hunt. It fostered in me a true appreciation for the entire experience -- the reading about, the tracking down, the viewing of milestone films. To borrow from Warren Oates, those satisfactions are permanent. Still, it doesn’t quell all of the envy I feel for the people that got to stand in line and buy that ticket in September of 1961 when Yojimbo came to town.

“Yojimbo was the first film by Akira Kurosawa that I ever saw and it was revelatory for me, even on television. My old man, the first movie enthusiast I knew, loves the Leone/Eastwood films and by the time I was nearing adolescence we had already watched those together numerous times. Little did I know that was paving the way for Kurosawa to come along and kick my ass. The Leone films were already pretty exciting stuff, what with their gunfights, gold and alien landscapes (alien to a kid in small town Oklahoma, anyway). Discovering Kurosawa, and specifically Yojimbo, though, was something altogether different and it taught me many a valuable lesson. It was a coming of age. Just about every kid, for a little while at least, is possessed of the silly and romantic notion that their thing (whatever that thing is) is the first thing, the best thing. Yojimbo may have been the first time I was made aware that there is nothing new under the sun -- not in a discouraging way, mind you, but more in the sense that there is a much larger continuum out there of which all art is a part. If it wasn’t already, my chase was now most definitely on.

“The film itself, you’re probably all acquainted with. Toshiro Mifune’s samurai-with-no-name plays both ends against the middle in a deft jidaigeki mixture of high noon sagebrush, film noir rough stuff, feudal Japanese class issues and swordplay. The result is a thrilling and cohesive whole that people are still ripping off/paying homage to today. The one thing that none of the predecessors or imitators have, though, is Mifune.

“I had never seen anything like him. I still haven’t. The human face has fifty-odd muscles in it. That’s approximately 3 X 10^64 possible facial expressions. Mifune is the only person on Earth whom I believe was capable of making them all. The story is riveting, but it's his fierceness and vitality that make this still fresh and exciting fifty years down the road. For all the windswept streets, mulberry fields and lonely roads, the most important topography is that face. That’s where the whole story plays out. It's what I couldn’t take my eyes off of as a youngster and it's the thing that is going to keep it a powerhouse fifty years from now. All that political shrewdness, earthy humor, cynicism and almost surreal violence bound up in one man, still so raw and intense, so entertainin.

“I thank the heavens every day for what technology affords us now as cinephiles. I marvel at the fact that (if it were my only option) I can watch Yojimbo on my telephone. We are alive in such an incredible time that we have access to film and the ramblings of other film lovers in ways never imagined half a century ago. But oh, what I would have given to be in the audience in 1961. It must have been like a bomb going off."

~ Cole Roulain

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The Muriels Hall of Fame: Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock)

"We all know Psycho. As with many of the cinema's most revered movies, I knew the storyline of Psycho years before I actually saw it. I don't remember who told me about it or what book I read that described the film down to the last detail, but when I saw it for the first time I was surprised how well I was able to anticipate, beat by beat, the storyline. A similar thing sometimes happens to me- and I would imagine to others- with other classic stories or movies, in particular early horror movies like Dracula or Frankenstein, after years of parodies, homages, remakes and other references, or even the theory of how stories can become so archetypal that they work themselves into our DNA.

"It's because Psycho is such an inescapable fact of the horror genre that something like Bates Motel has a place in today's television landscape (and has been successful enough to be granted a second season) even though it's based, or "inspired," by a movie more than half a century old. It's not just nostalgia- after all, a beloved series like The Munsters wasn't able to make it out of the pilot of its remake. I could conjure an explanation for this, but I think it's just as important to consider Psycho in relation to television, considering that the film owes nearly as much to the medium of television as it does to the silver screen.

"Along with being a master of cinema, Alfred Hitchcock also mastered the art of creating his own image. Of all the great filmmakers, perhaps none is more recognizable than Hitchcock (OK, I'll grant you Chaplin, but he was also a movie star) even to those who haven't seen his movies. I speak from experience here- I didn't know what Steven Spielberg looked like until I was 17 years old, but I could point out Hitchcock when I was a kid even though I didn't see my first Hitchcock film until years later. He put his name not only on his movies, but also on magazines and of course his signature television series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In addition to hosting the show every week with his typical macabre humor, he also directed 15 of its 268 episodes over seven seasons. When the time came to direct Psycho, Hitchcock decided to give his usual big-screen collaborators a break in favor of the crew from the TV series, and it's clear that many of the techniques he learned through making television influenced the film.

"For an example of this, we need look no further than the first episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "Revenge" (S1.E01). The episode's protagonist is played by Vera Miles (who later appeared in Psycho), and the way he shot and used the scenes involving cars would inform similar scenes in the film. Additionally, "Back For Christmas" (S1.E23), the cellar is a key location for the story's action, much like the climax of the film. And in "Mr. Blanchard's Secret" (S2.E13) the protagonist constantly sees a house with a light on, signaling the presence of someone she believes to be dead, an idea Hitchcock turns on its head in shots of the Bates Manor.

"But I would say that the two episodes that most directly influenced the making of Psycho are "One More Mile to Go" (S2.E28) and "Lamb to the Slaughter" (S3.E28). In the former, there is a scene, shot in a single unbroken take, in which a criminal fastidiously cleans up a crime scene. Later in this episode, the perspective shifts to the point of view of the criminal being followed by a cop, and the composition of the shots is reminiscent of the early scenes in Psycho when Marion is attempting to escape with the stolen cash. "Lamb to the Slaughter" is probably the most famous Hitch-directed episode of the series, if only for the final scene: a woman has killed her husband, and the police unknowingly proceed to eat the murder weapon, a frozen leg of lamb. The final shot mirrors the end of Psycho almost perfectly, with a voiceover of the woman explaining what she has done as the camera slowly pushes in on her face, punctuated by a smile as we hear the last line. OK, so a skull isn't superimposed on her face, but you can't have everything, can you?

"I don't make these comparisons to bury the achievement of Psycho, but to praise it. While it's undeniable that some of the techniques that Hitchcock used to make Psycho had already been road-tested on his television series, it's also clear that the ability to do so gave him the confidence of knowing how to elicit the maximum amount of suspense from any given moment, to "play the audience like a piano," to quote the Master himself. Besides, it helps to remember that no great work of art exists in a vacuum, and just because Hitchcock incorporated some elements from the show into the film, that takes a back seat to the fact that, even today, the movie just plain works."

~ Jaime Grijalba

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The Muriels Hall of Fame: North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock)

“Jaws is generally credited with the birth of the blockbuster, but the groundwork for the modern action movie was laid a half-century ago by none other than Alfred Hitchcock. Coming off of 1958’s Vertigo, easily his darkest, most difficult work (and not coincidentally, a middling performer at the box office), it’s as if Hitchcock decided to give the people what they wanted by crafting the most entertaining follow-up possible, using one of his favored plot devices – mistaken identity – as a springboard for a sprawling cross-country adventure. With an assist from Oscar-nominated screenwriter Ernest Lehman, the master of suspense leapfrogs from one spellbinding set piece to the next, including a chase across Mount Rushmore and the crop-duster sequence that ranks among the most celebrated action sequences of all time. This is not to suggest that North by Northwest is merely mindless escapism, as its plotting, humor and execution is far more sophisticated than you’ll find in the countless imitators that followed. (And let’s take a moment to be thankful that the film was made long before sequelitis ran rampant in Hollywood – South by Southwest, anyone?) Still, the movie remains one of Hitchcock’s fizziest concoctions, and Cary Grant’s urbane, witty performance is the straw that stirs the drink."

~ Scott Von Doviak

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The Muriels Hall of Fame: Vertigo (1958, Alfred Hitchcock)

“The canonization of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo as the greatest film by all time by Sight & Sound, might seem obvious at first, but there are many reasons it stands out as an odd choice in the Master of Suspense’s filmography. Vertigo plays like many of Hitchcock’s countless great works, but it also might be said to lack the perfective harmony of something like Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt, or Psycho. How did Scottie get down from the ledge? What happened to Madeline in the hotel? Where did that nun come from? Not only that, while most of his films are playful, Vertigo is mournful, hypnotic, and often uncomfortable in a way different from the violence that percolates other Hitchcock’s.It is perhaps the most open of his films, inviting theory and interpretation to fill in the gaps raised. As any search of a scholarly film resource would show, almost every single theoretical model of film analysis (auteur, genre, psychoanalysis, feminist, semiotics, and so on) has been applied to the monster.

“I use ‘monster’ because Vertigo is a monstrous film for so many reasons. Scottie, the loveable protagonist played by the usually lovable Jimmy Stewart, slowly turns into a monster, his eyes shooting fire across the screen with burning desire. There is, of course, the “monster creature” of the film, the ghost of Carlotta Valdes that haunts Madeline (another viewing reveals how Hitchcock treats the ghost story with serious and genuine reverence). Finally, the film itself is monstrous; one that cannot be explained, simplified, or discussed without feeling reductive. For as much one can explain how the shots, the score, the acting, the camera movement, and colors, and the dialogue all contribute to making Vertigo the film I see on screen, there is something missing from any description that strikes me deep when I watch the film, an unsettling quality of both desire, longing, and even mourning.

“Vertigo’s monstrous nature and canonization has much to do with the film’s relationship to filmmaking and cinephilia. As Andre Bazin describes in his iconic essay, The Ontology of the Photographic Image, film is only a continuation of the process of preserving and resurrecting the dead, which dates all the way back to the ancient Egyptians. And as Hitchcock told Francois Truffaut, “I was intrigued by the hero's attempts to re-create the image of a dead woman through another one who's alive.” Taken together, Vertigo is about our ability to save the past from extinction, to view what was as of what is. It’s a film that speaks to why and how we watch the moving image, taken all the way to the director who must create his own image of perfection. Scottie demands everything from Judy, just for that chance to see Madeline again. An exact visual representation, tinted with a ghostly presence,finally appears. It’s sealed with a kiss that brings him round and round and into the moment of his past he desires to resurrect. Then the necklace appears, and the dream, just like the film, comes crashing down, leaving the man to stare at his destructive act. Is this Hitchcock’s warning to not only himself but the cinephiles like this? If there was an answer, it wouldn’t be considered one of the greats.”

~ Peter Labuza

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The Muriels Hall of Fame: The Seventh Seal (1957, Ingmar Bergman)

"Just in terms of modern cultural history, the whole concept of moviemaking as a personal form of creative expression--a means of working as an artist--would be very different if it hadn't been for Ingmar Bergman. And Ingmar Bergman's career, reputation, and public identity would not be quite the same if he had never made The Seventh Seal. Thanks to this movie, which I didn't actually see until I was in my late twenties, I have known for as long as I can remember that Death is a serious-faced man with an ashen complexion who wears a hooded long robe and plays chess.

"What isn't as easy to make clear to the uninitiated is how excitingly fresh this movie still feels, after many viewings and more than fifty years on the shelf, and how much more there is to it than its central image. Someone who hasn't seen it might not guess how emotionally varied it is--and how funny. Bergman's ability to see reasons for despair in anything made it possible for him, in his previous film, Smiles of a Summer Night, to make a great sex comedy tinged with bone-shattering melancholy. Here, his seriousness of purpose and his showman's gifts are in such uncanny balance that he doesn't undercut the power of his vision of life squandered even when he throws in an image that might have come from one of his parodists--the man looking down from the top of the tree he's climbed to escape danger to see Death, smiling, sawing away at its trunk.

"In his lesser work, Bergman could see cause for despair in situations that others might think better called for a stiff drink, but in this film, with its doomed protagonist (Max Von Sydow) and set amid devastation sewn by warfare, ignorance, and plague, he used the tools for a vision of hopelessness to forge an affirmation of the underappreciated value of life."

~ Phil Dyess-Nugent

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The Muriels Hall of Fame: An Introduction

Ever since Steve and I founded the Muriel Awards in 2006, we’ve always tried to focus on classic movies along with the new releases. With annual awards given to the greatest films of ten, twenty-five, and fifty years ago, our voters have been enthusiastic about honoring the great achievements in movie history, an enthusiasm that has also displayed itself in our annual special decade awards. Sadly, this compulsion to look back isn’t as common as one would hope among movie lovers. In a recent piece written for the A.V. Club, Muriel Award winner Mike D’Angelo (http://www.avclub.com/articles/old-cinema-can-still-feel-new-as-a-key-scene-from,99557/) bemoaned a certain tendency among moviegoers. In D’Angelo’s words:

“By far the most galling aspect… is seeing people condescend to movies made before they were born. Often, they’ll allow that some canonical masterpiece was hugely influential, or “good for its time,” but in the next breath confess that they just can’t take it seriously given the enormous advances that have been made in the decades since.”

Sadly, this is not a new phenomenon. In the past, I’ve despaired of the way most people view silent movies in particular, as quaint curiosities that for all their charms are somehow lesser than what’s out there now simply because they don’t contain spoken dialogue (this is one of my numerous reservations about 2011’s admittedly charming The Artist). Likewise, there’s an idea floating around that black and white movies are somehow missing something essential now that the majority of movies are filmed in color. What these ideas overlook is that the great artists, regardless of their medium, have always been able to use the limitations imposed upon them to their ultimate advantage. A great silent film or a great black and white film isn’t a masterpiece in spite of the fact that there’s no sound or color; these films are great because their makers were able to use black-and-white film and dialogue-free storytelling in ways that accentuated their respective strengths. In other words, when a great classic film is working, you don’t miss what isn’t there. Truly great films never feel old; they feel timeless.

It’s in this spirit that we’ve decided to introduce the Muriels Hall of Fame. Being the sort of person who can never quite leave well enough alone, I’m always looking for ways to keep the Muriels fresh for both our voters and the people who follow us, and following last year’s Muriels win by the hopelessly movie-drunk Holy Motors, the time felt right to me to get this thing started. I wasn’t sure how well it would go over, but although some people weren’t able to participate this year, the idea was nonetheless met with enthusiasm from most of the voters.

In a nutshell, here’s how it worked. I invited everyone who participated in the 2012 Muriels to nominate ten films of any length made in 1962 or before (setting aside movies that have already won the 50th Anniversary Muriel Award, which will be grandfathered into the Hall of Fame automatically). From this pool, I then took every movie that received at least two nominations, from which the voters would then choose their top ten. The ten movies that received the highest number of points are this year’s inductees.

Over the next 2 ½ weeks, I will be announcing this year’s inaugural Hall of Fame inductees right here on this blog, unveiling one each day beginning with the previous Anniversary Award winners. While some of this year’s winners will be the ones you would expect, but there will be a handful of surprises in the mix as well. And as always, I’ve invited some of the voters to write a few paragraphs about the winners. After all, the Muriel Awards are about more than choosing our favorites; we’re also about expressing our love for the best that cinema has to offer.

Thanks once again for your continued support of the Muriel Awards. We hope you’ll continue following us over the following weeks and years.