For this list of five favorite films, the common denominator is madness.
In each of the five on the list below, the main character is nutty. In each that character’s craziness is what drives the story. To narrow the field, I’ve limited it to movies that are essentially about characters who are steadily getting more detached from the supposedly sane reality around them. Since it's hard to find the sane world in the midst of a war, movies set in war are not included on this list of five, which is presented in alphabetical order.
Five Favorite Films with Crazy Protagonists
"Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972): Directed by Werner Herzog; Cast: Klaus Kinski, Helena Rojo, Del Negro
"Network" (1976): Directed by Sidney Lumet; Cast: Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, William Holden
"Repulsion" (1965): Directed By Roman Polanski; Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser
"Taxi Driver" (1976): Directed by Martin Scorsese; Cast: Robert DeNiro, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle
"Wise Blood" (1979): Directed by John Huston; Cast: Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton, John Huston
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5 comments:
Terry -
Really been enjoying your movie lists. Great choices on this one, too, although I haven't seen WISE BLOOD....but if Brad Dourif is in it, I'm sure he's pretty damned crazy.
AGUIRRE would have to top the list for me as well - Klaus is about as over the edge as you can get.
Man, I just love "Wise Blood" .. I saw it mainly because it was made here in Macon, GA, but I thought the source work was unfilmable .. leave it to John Huston to prove me way wrong!
I, for one, would attend a "Terry Rea Film Festival" happily. You and I have very similar tastes, F.T.
"Wise Blood" is great. It was also nice to see "The Conversation" on an earlier list - a movie we are all still catching up to (I'm afraid).
-- Don
"A Beautiful Mind"
"The Fisher King"
"Memento"
"Fearless"
Forgot one:
"Jacob's Ladder"
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