Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. 1920s: While the introduction of sound was finding its way into films, I've always had a passion for the 'silents'. My choice for a second best movie of these early days was a silent film released in 1927 and was non-American in its genesis to cinema. The project was intensely long, artistically sharpened in both technology and ambition AND was intended to be the first in a series of six films as it planned to unfold its large tale. The sequels never happened but this one is ours for history, especially in a restored version that was re-released in 2000, with a breathtaking orchestral score that deserved renewed attention. Which movie is the first on my 'almost' list?
2. 1930s: Rare is the movie fan who looks on any other decade as more influential in cinema history than this one was. Things were changing (sound, color, outrageous glamor/size of fantasies in general) on screen as life in the "real" streets of the world was rife with troubles in many directions. To me, the 1930s were captured well by the epitome of cinematic grace, class, romance and a dance that never needed to end. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers did what the public only wished they could do and the classic pair did it with more style than any camera could have hoped to capture better. In this feast to the eyes, they played Jerry Travers (a hoofer in need of a show) who was trying to impress a certain socialite named Dale Tremont. Did he get his girl? You bet - and the film even picked up a nomination for Oscar gold as Best Picture, too! Which of these dance-filled classics am I liking a great deal right now?
3. 1940s: As usual, the movies reflected the times in which they were made in this rocky decade. The escapism (which is the value of the industry entirely) remained but some responsibility, call it a public service sensibility, crept in too. A war was tearing the world apart, so the movies got a bit more thoughtful about our lives as they were lived. The 1942 film I'm choosing got a little TOO serious perhaps. It remained shelved for a year with the studios fearing it was too much of a "downer" (in the middle of WWII that is saying quite a mouthful)! The novel upon which it was based, by Henry Bellamann, was a bit of a scorcher but the film was tame compared to it. By today's standards the movie was just a vintage look at five childhood friends who grew up in a small town. Their idyllic youth was interrupted by secrets and tragedy in adulthood. The plot thickened, backed by a widely respected soundtrack, at every turn. The cast was splendid, notably a young fellow who didn't have the lead role in it but certainly came to change the world in his own way, some decades after his work here. Which not-so-shocking movie am I sharing this time?
4. 1950s: I, personally, love the films of this decade more than any other. The screen was full of characters - rich in flaws, passion, challenges and fireworks. If an actor got a good part at all, it seemed even better in the climate of the way movies were made in the 1950s. The film I'm choosing this time is, without a doubt, a film that loved the art of film itself. It paid honor to all things that Hollywood had given us so ably in the past and assured that we'd get countless years more to come. Imagine it, a movie about fading goddesses of the silver screen, beauty once bold but now slipping away. Add a charming rascal of a love interest (who wasn't homely by a mile, of course) - a man with a heart so visible but a soul so convoluted. Throw in a decaying mansion, a mostly irritated (and frightening) manservant, a trusting young girl, Cecil B. DeMille, a bold-faced gigolo and, finally, a late-night swim in a less-than-inviting California swimming pool. This story has a whole new generation of fans too, what with a Broadway musical recently made of it. What unforgettable 1950 film was this one?
5. 1960s: My next pick was a 1963 film which involved a few things that make a movie unforgettable to me, every time they happen singularly and even more when they happen simultaneously. First, I can't get enough of an actress doing such a fine job in a role that she is burned into my memory forever. The character of Alma, in this gritty character study, surely managed that. I also am a HUGE fan of author Larry McMurtry and he wrote the novel this movie was based on. Then there was Texas and cowboys, which were both an arena of wild adventures in this young viewer's midwestern-born head at the time I first saw it. In this film it was mostly the acting that raised it to heights that it might not have reached in lesser hands. It didn't hurt watching Paul Newman doing an incredible job playing the most charismatic snake this side of the Pacific Ocean, either. Which film was this one?
6. 1970s: Filming a biography can be tricky. Even if the liberties taken or name changes make for a compelling tale, there's always the nay-sayers who find such poetic licenses unnecessary or even disrespectful. Such was the case for this 1974 masterpiece. To many, the venues it explored were unpleasant, the character(s) mostly obsessed in one way or another, and the legitimacy of the whole project was either mostly tainted or corrupted entirely. I found this film brilliant. I found the acting outstanding and I found the characters in it complicated enough to be bitterly interesting yet enjoyable enough to root for. One of these films was directed by Bob Fosse (and starred a thespian who would later win an Oscar for Best Lead Actor, less than a decade after this film was released). That film is the one I'm calling an "almost best" here. How far an artiste would go to explore his or her craft was the pervasive question this movie asked. The answer, by the look of it...as far as it took. Which film am I proud to appreciate this time?
7. 1980s: My selection for this decade should not be a surprise to anyone. "Raging Bull" (1980) was everything a "best" film experience should be. It was visually stunning, offering in slow motion the vomit-worthy violence of a boxing match as if it were ballet. Jake LaMotta, aside from being a real Middleweight champion in the 1940s and 1950s, was also a choice character to portray. He was ambitious, paranoid, corrupt and unable to emotionally connect purposefully with anyone. All of the elements of a phenomenally complex movie were there and director Martin Scorcese pulled all of it together, presenting what is now considered one of the finest films ever made. Critic Roger Ebert called the movie an "Othello" for our times ~ in Shakespeare's play, though, there was a fleshed-out traitor named Iago but in LaMotta's life he only thought he was surrounded by Iagos. The film gave us two characters who were the targets of Jake's suspicions - his brother/manager and his second wife. What were the REAL names of the characters of the brother and Jake's beleaguered wife in the rock-solid classic "Raging Bull"?
8. 1990s: This film, another ALL-time favorite, is not everyone's cup of tea. It looked far more at the thorns than it did the rose and it (sort of) had an unhappy ending, which was seen at the beginning! Clearly, the crises one experiences at the approach to middle-age are not new in films, or literature, or anywhere else. However, entering that plateau in life -erm- dead is a definite twist of things. A man with the beautiful job, life and home decided he'd much rather work at a burger joint, lust after a mere teenager and smoke marijuana behind the high school? His neighbor was another perfect picture of patriotism and rightness (until we found out that he's an obsessed, abusive and fatally repressed beast). The lovely young daughter liked to expose her breasts to a neighbor who photographs litter. The wife/mother was carrying on shamelessly with an associate named "King" - somewhat appropriate in this 'look-but-don't-see' neighborhood of life-sized chess playing. Everything in this film stood for something else and each something else was something with which we were all familiar. Lester was 'Everyman', just hoping to remind us that we all know that time goes by very very fast. He's up there to say that it's best to realize it before it runs out, that's all. Which dizzyingly crafty film am I admiring from 1999?
9. 2000s: The decade is unfinished as I write this. What to expect? The technology is still evolving, and the boundaries are almost limitless. My choice is a 2002 film that I hope indicates what the future of the movies has in store for us. Wladyslaw (based on a real fellow) was the main character in this gripping memoir. He was a musician in Warsaw circa 1939, when the Invasion of Poland occurred. At first he was not terribly daunted, as he hoped and assumed that this skirmish would end as suddenly as it began. The opposite happened, in more ways than this instinctively gentle soul of a man could fathom - but he survived it. By luck, by almost magical interventions, even by a chronic disbelief that this all could actually be real he put one day behind the last one, and watched the world disintegrate into this horrific thing that used to deserve his spirited accompaniments. As it went, there seemed no longer any rhythms in it at all. Did the music that he carried within save him in the end? All I will suggest is that you will never listen to Chopin the same way again after watching this fine film. What movie is it?
10. Most of my choices here seem strangely mainstream to me, not so unlike the films many movie-goers might choose. When it comes to picking my personal favorites (film history aside), though, I have to reach a little farther outside of the box. I suspect this film would qualify. It is, however (and only in my opinion), one of the Top 5 films I have ever had the pleasure to watch. While not a 'Hollywood' backed film (which, really, might have been in its favor from the start) it told a simple story and was rich with "ordinary" characters. There was a successful young woman, named Hortense, who discovered that she had a heretofore unknown of birth mother, named Cynthia Rose. As the two met, the revelations, discoveries and moments that were so startling and right unfolded. That was (with intense interactions and performances of the highest calibre) the entire crux of this splendid exploration of the ungenerous nows, the mostly dubious thens and the entirely vague what nexts of a group of mostly average-yet-special and inventively fleshed out people in England. Which 1996 film do I think was almost the best of the rest?
Source: Author
Gatsby722
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor
skunkee before going online.
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