DVDs weren't out yet, so please ignore my box set

[sovay]

The hundred movies meme was even harder to assemble because I spent far more of my childhood and adolescence immersed in books than in movies and therefore many of the films on this list were not so much formative as illuminating once I finally started paying attention to cinema as an art form, and/or they wired themselves instantly into my brain and are quoted regularly to this day. A list of favorites might overlap significantly but not identically, I imagine tilting more heavily toward sff and noir. I feel it may be a much more mainstream list than my formative books, although still full of meaningful absences. (I sacrificed a number of classics as well as movies whose circumstances were potentially more important than their content, but just glitched on The Medium (1951) and Katerina Izmailova (1966), both of which I even own.) I find it very difficult to try to winnow accurately. I may just not be designed for this format of meme.

Comments

[sartorias]

I've seen 25 of them, which surprised me. The only one that I watched enough to consider formative was CASABLANCA--I wish I'd seen PIMPERNEL SMITH when young, as it would have been even higher, I think. Though I appreciated "Ich möchte ein Mann sein," which I saw ages ago in German class. If you'd had Fritz Lang's NIBELUNGEN on there, it would have also been high; hearing him speak was one of the highlights of my early life.

[sovay]

I've seen 25 of them, which surprised me. The only one that I watched enough to consider formative was CASABLANCA--I wish I'd seen PIMPERNEL SMITH when young, as it would have been even higher, I think.

I discovered it in my late twenties and it became a kind of instant talisman, all the more so within the last decade.

Though I appreciated "Ich möchte ein Mann sein," which I saw ages ago in German class.

I didn't know that! It was the first movie I watched on our Linux-driven pseudo-TV because it was on FilmStruck at the time, very shortly after which FilmStruck ceased to exist.

If you'd had Fritz Lang's NIBELUNGEN on there, it would have also been high; hearing him speak was one of the highlights of my early life.

I've never seen his Nibelungen! I remember that you heard him speak: I am glad you did.

[sartorias]

It's six hours long! Because Fritz Lang had come over, the prof arranged for us to see it at Grauman's Chinese, and they brought out of retirement an elderly party who had played for the silents forty years before. Six hours of black and white flickering gave me the worst migraine I ever had, but it was worth it to see that film, which was just splendid, especially after hearing his stories about filming it.

[sovay]

Six hours of black and white flickering gave me the worst migraine I ever had, but it was worth it to see that film, which was just splendid, especially after hearing his stories about filming it.

That sounds magnificent.