We’re getting close to the end of my in-no-way fixed list of favorite films that were made in my lifetime. You can read the previous entries here, here, here, here, and here.
Whit Stillman’s Barcelona comes in fourth place, although his other two films, both on my list, could easily take its spot. Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman play Ted and Fred, two Americans residing in Barcelona around the end of the Cold War. Ted works in sales; Fred is in the Navy. As he does in his other films, Stillman swims as a playful yet observant explorer within the deep and mysterious culture wherein he sets his story. And, as is his style, he relies heavily on his gift for smart, reference-heavy dialogue to reveal the wonders of that culture. He throws Ted and Fred in over their heads in a foreign world in which anti-American sentiment is high and sexual revolution is just starting to change the tide. Here’s a short scene:
Being John Malkovich is the philosopher’s dream movie. Director Spike Jonze and writer Charlie Kaufman give us what I’d call the finest cinematic work of speculative fiction ever—well, at least that I’ve seen. Jonze and Kaufman would have made a great film had they kept the action around the original wonder – John Cusack finding a portal into the body and being of actor John Malkovich – but the two don’t stay in orbit. I won’t say where they go, but I will reveal that they fashion a brilliant mythology that has more philosophical significance in one of its minutes than the Matrix films have in their entirety. Philosophy profs could use this film as the basis for curriculums on ethics, metaphysics, existentialism, personalism, utilitarianism, aesthetics, perception, technology, and identity, to name just a few; but the film is, at its core and throughout its scenes, a work of art in which character and dramatic conflict reign.
John Cusack also stars in my second (and sometimes first) favorite movie, the serious comedy High Fidelity. After his girlfriend leaves him, Rob Gordon (Cusack) reminisces about his top-five most memorable break-ups and then decides to call up each one in a quest to discover why he seems doomed to be alone. High Fidelity might be called a comedy of the modern male psyche, or, at least, the psyche of love-sick, commitment-allergic modern male, assuming there’s a difference.
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