Jeffrey M. Anderson's 400 Screens, 400 Blows - The Life and Death of Small Films

Last week I wrote about the late Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman, but after I posted my column, I made a startling discovery. Over the past two months, we lost two more masters, the African filmmaker Ousmane Sembene, who died June 9 at age 84, and the Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang, who died June 29 at age 59. As with Antonioni and Bergman, I was lucky enough to have reviewed the final films of both filmmakers, Sembene's Moolaade (2004), and Yang's Yi Yi (2000), and I gave each a four star rating. In fact, I'd rate Yi Yi as perhaps the finest film of the decade so far. Unlike Antonioni or Bergman, these two never received any Oscar nominations and so their deaths did not rate headlines. I suppose if I had been more diligent about combing the web for movie news, I would have found out about them earlier.

Also this week, Buena Vista posted two decades' worth of movie reviews from Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert's various TV shows, including all the "guest critics" from 1999 and Siskel's "replacement," Richard Roeper. I've been addicted to this site since it debuted last Thursday, looking up my favorite movies from mid-1986 (where the reviews seem to begin) to early 1999 when Siskel passed away. Like many movie buffs my age, I grew up with Siskel and Ebert and learned a good deal from their show. It's wonderful to see Siskel again, as well as a younger, more vibrant Ebert, arguing with passion about movies they genuinely care about.

I think I miss Siskel more than any of the filmmakers that have passed away this summer. I'll always have DVDs of films by those that have passed, many of which I haven't seen yet. But new films are coming out all the time without Siskel getting a chance to review them. Seeing these reviews again has been an astonishingly emotional experience. They have affected me in two ways: they have revitalized my love for movies, and they have made me a bit depressed about the current state of things. Movies are much the same as they were when Siskel was alive. Some of them have gotten more expensive and more crass, and maybe so-called independent films have become more formulaic; but there are still about the same number of good films and bad films each year.

The business itself has become nastier, as the studios attempt to increase their "control" over an essentially uncontrollable industry (it's an art form, and thus depends on human whims and emotions). Lately, they have done this by withholding more and more films from the press, and attempting to clamp down on piracy, which they blame partially on film critics. Meanwhile, professional critics are losing their jobs as newspapers begin to fold in the new economy. Eventually this will be sorted out, somehow, some way, but now things are just a bit uncertain. That's what Siskel and Ebert had, a kind of certainty. There was something comforting about their appearances each week, and their crystal clear assessments on movies of every stripe. They also projected an air of being one of us, a pair of moviegoers rather than a pair of celebrities who had lunch with other celebrities.

Each show would inevitably open on the new, big movie, but it would always move on to smaller films, which received the exact same consideration, and many of which would earn the genuine enthusiasm of the dueling critics. They were known in their day for single-handedly rescuing My Dinner with Andre (1981) from oblivion and turning it into a cult sensation, and the same could be said for countless other, small films. Nowadays, no single critic has that much power, but many of us join in the collective shouts and murmurs on Rotten Tomatoes, which offers a similar kind of "two thumbs up, two thumbs down" assessment of many films. And so, from the currently playing "fresh" list, here are a few "two thumbs up" recommendations to which I have lent my voice.

Adrienne Shelly's Waitress (80 screens) is a wonderful romantic comedy that combines "quirky" with genuine feeling, and introduces a palpable element of dread and sadness along with its joy and romance. Kasi Lemmons' Talk to Me (187 screens) is that rare item, a kind of biopic that avoids the ever-increasingly familiar biopic formula, featuring great performances from Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Paris je t'aime (40 screens) is a compilation of short films from eighteen international directors, with a standout from Alfonso Cuaron. John Dahl's You Kill Me (26 screens) is a return to what Dahl does best: nasty, amusing little films noir, as seen from the inside out. The documentary Into Great Silence (1 screen) is an almost spiritual experience, with its extraordinary patience. And the Australian film Ten Canoes (9 screens) celebrates the very idea of telling stories and passing them down to others. And with that, until next time, the balcony is closed.