In Contention

Tag: Birth

  • Guy’s top 50 of the decade: #1-10

    Maribel Verdu in Y tu Mama TambienAnd then there were ten.

    Before I wrap up the list that I’ve trickled out over the last five days, I suppose I should write a few words on the decade that was. I entered the 2000s as a 16 year-old boy in Johannesburg who thought he knew a lot about movies. I left it as a 26 year-old man in London who knows a lot more than he did then — but realizes that he knows a lot less. There is still so much to see that I’ve barely touched upon — from this past decade alone.

    Probably no filmgoing decade in my lifetime will be as crucial to me as the one that passed, in terms of the shift and growth in my sense of how to read (and write) film.

    I may have already known that I loved movies, but in the 2000s I gained a sharper sense of how to love them, what I really respond to in a film — and the 50 titles gathered here (along with many, many others) helped fine-tune that notion.

    With that kind of personal learning curve attached to the decade, it’s hard to stand back and judge how it might stack against previous ones; strong, weak or average, it’ll always feel like my decade. As I compiled the list, however, did arrive at the conclusion that it started better than it finished. Sheer mathematics supports this personal view — the top 10 films I’m about to reveal all landed in the decade’s first half, and I don’t think that’s merely down to the advantage of distance.

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  • The actor as auteur

    Nicole Kidman in BirthOne of my current favorite film writers, Ryan Gilbey, has written an excellent New Statesman piece reflecting on the past decade in film acting. In it, he argues that the 2000s have gone some way towards blurring the definitions of ‘star’ and ‘character actor,’ and singling out the achievements of three actors in particular:

    Unconsciously or otherwise, [Nicole] Kidman, [Viggo] Mortensen and [Johnny] Depp have insisted that the star can be an instrument of art rather than (or as well as) commerce, like superheroes dedicating their unearthly gifts to the service of good over evil.

    This ties neatly into a piece I wrote here recently on the decade’s key actors, where I (and a number of you) suggested that Kidman’s adventurous straddling of arthouse and commercial instincts put her in the top spot — however hit-and-miss her filmography.

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  • Well, it sure sounds pretty

    If, like me, you’re writhing in frustration at not having seen “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” yet, here’s some minor compensation — you can listen to it instead. The score, that is.

    As you’re surely aware, it’s by Alexandre Desplat, who happens to be my favourite modern composer. That his only Oscar nomination thus far has come for his comparatively unadventurous work on “The Queen” is a shamefully inadequate testament to the creative breadth of his oeuvre.

    His balancing of romanticism and minimalism in “Birth” made for the greatest score of the decade, in my opinion, while the snubbing of his lush, culturally expansive score for “Lust, Caution” was just one of numerous ways in which the Academy’s music branch proved themselves unfit for purpose last year. I could go into his equally gorgeous work on “The Beat That My Heart Skipped,” or “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” or “A Self-Made Hero,” or several other titles, but time is of the essence.

    Anyway, suffice to say that his “Button” score sounds as layered, intelligent and seductive as you’d expect from Desplat — I can’t imagine the music branch turning a blind eye (or ear) to him this time. I only listened to a little, as I want to experience it in its entirety for the first time in the context of the film… I’m pedantic that way. But if you’re so inclined, check it out on the film’s BAFTA For Your Consideration site.