Friends,
A few weeks ago, a (you are not) special 10-year anniversary of Fight Club was released. 10 years! What a surprise! I don’t know if that blows your mind like it blows my mind, but that blows my mind!
The thing is,
…a few months ago I read an article making a pretty bold claim. The article suggests that 1984 might be the best year for movies for movie-watchers ever.
While I totally agree that 1984 kicked some ass, (I mean, this guy’s list starts with Steve Martin’s Lonely Guy!) I think a case could be made for another year. I’ve thought…for 10 years now!…that 1999 holds its own for one of the best years of film ever. I’d like to tell you why I think 1999 holds its own (along with 1939, 1967, and 1974) as one of the greatest movie-years ever. My argument in support will be skeletal.[1] Perhaps more support can worked-out in the comments. Hopefully, the list itself will count against the 1984 claim.
Now, supporting the claim (that 1999 is the greatest) is a difficult process. I could go through, like Mr. Nashawaty does, every month of 1999 and show off some delightful releases. I could list wikipedia’s American films of 1999. I could show off the Academy Award nominations for 1999, or Ebert’s Top 10. IMDB’s list of released films of 1999 is cumbersome. Not only does it list films from 1997 and 1998, the list also includes such classics as Blowjob Adventures of Dr. Fellatio part 15 and True Anal Stories 4 and 5! Fortunately for us, those films won’t make the Pratfalls list.
So, here we go.
My top five:
Being John Malkovich
Bringing Out the Dead
Election
The Iron Giant
American Beauty/Fight Club (a tie!)
The Rest Which Count (Ones I Haven’t Seen Marked with an Asterisk):
Magnolia
Eyes Wide Shut
Office Space
The Red Violin
All About My Mother
The Matrix
The Sixth Sense
The Green Mile
Buena Vista Social Club
Topsy-Turvy*
The Insider
Titus
Any Given Sunday
Blair Witch Project
The Limey
Boys Don’t Cry
Minus Man
Angela’s Ashes*
Cookie’s Fortune*
Ravenous
Hurricane
Run Lola Run
Snow Falling on Cedars
Ghost Dog
The End of the Affair*
Summer of Sam
Happy, Texas
Sweet and Lowdown
Jesus’ Son
Dogma
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Three Kings
Twin Falls Idaho
Anna and the King*
Fantasia 2000
Girl, Interrupted
Sleepy Hollow
Virgin Suicides
South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut
and
Toy Story 2
My Guilty Pleasures
The 13th Floor
American Pie
Drop Dead Gorgeous
10 Things I Hate About You
Eddie Izzard: Dressed to Kill
Muppets from Space Mystery Men
Radiohead’s Meeting People is Easy
Varsity Blues
and
She’s All That
Look at that list! Just look at it. I would consider someone well-versed in the films of 1999 ahead of the game for knowledge of film in general. I always go to the films of 1999 to introduce kiddos to good cinema. And, I’ve consciously watched in the ten years since 1999 for cinema to match it. I want each subsequent year to compare to 1999, and they never do! To further emphasize my personal commitment to 1999’s greatness, I’ll just note that I have seriously jeopardized friendships because of conversations about American Beauty, Fight Club, the Matrix, Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut, Blair Witch, and the Green Mile. Assess it as you may, but I’ll count that little personal fact not as highlighting my own aggressiveness to win arguments, but rather highlighting the quality of the films in question.
In 1999 a combination of great directors (new and tenured) released great films. The quality of the films paired with the quantity of competitive releases made 1999 great. So it’s great films, but it’s more than that. The last Kubrick film (Eyes Wide Shut) was released; Woody Allen released (the underestimated) Sweet and Lowdown; Scorsese released (the waaaaay underestimated) Bringing out the Dead; Michael Mann released what some call his best film, the Insider. But 1999 also had phenomenal and promising young filmmakers: Spike Jonze, Brad Bird, Sam Mendes, M. Night Shyamalan, Julie Taymor, and Sophia Copolla (the woman who’s NEVER successfully emoted). It also saw cinema favorites: Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, Frank Darbont, P. T. Anderson, David Fincher, Stephen Soderbergh, David O. Russell, Jim Jarmusch, Mike Leigh, Tim Burton, Kevin Smith, and Robert Altman.[2]
Look back at the 1999 list. Notice the incredible thematic overlap with most of these films. They’re all films about men (who all dress the same) finding the weird and strange world underneath or beyond dead-end jobs. I mean, Fight Club, the Matrix, Office Space, American Beauty, Election, Eyes Wide Shut, Bringing Out the Dead, the Insider, the Sixth Sense, the Green Mile, and Being John Malkovich are all about the same thing! In retrospect, it’s almost too obvious to point out. Here’s a normal world, here’s the underworld. The protagonists and their storylines differ substantially, but each one comes from the same world. The white-collar, 30-something professional world. And for each protagonist, this professional (the “real”) world has left them completely unprepared for the real world (And in the case of She’s All That, the character from The Real World is unprepared for the real world). So the characters panic. Interlocutors could point out the commonality of these themes going back at least to Plato’s Republic; but it’s incredibly interesting how these filmmakers independently (from each other, that is, not from the studios—though, yes, some are independent of the studios) start with the same antecedents. And they’re doing it at the same time.
And it’s strange because there’s a difference in tone with these 1999-ers from immediately before and immediately after. These aren’t the heroic characters of 90s cinema (Braveheart, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, to name a few), and they’re not the revengeful or cold or nihilistic anti-heroes of cinema of the 2000s (There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men, Mystic River, Old Boy, even Gladiator). There’s a change, a different kind of cynicism in 2000s film. Even movies in the last decade which use similar frameworks or starting points (Little Children, Michael Clayton, The Departed, Primer, A Beautiful Mind) have a darker feel. The stories from 1999 juggled a hopefulness and cynicism better than subsequent efforts at similar themes. These great filmmakers had this moment of synchronicity in theme and style. That’s pretty remarkable.
And, I’ll admit 1999 had some pretty lousy selections. I’m thinking of the run of Robin Williams movies (like Jakob the Liar and Bicentennial Man), Star Wars: Episode 1, and all that movie-filler which wastes talent by type-casting (or underestima-casting) a decent actor into fad-status (I’m thinking here of Cuba Gooding Jr. in Chill Factor, Michael Caine in Cider House Rules, and Matthew Lillard in Wing Commander, et al.–and yes, I did just call Matthew Lillard a decent actor; did you see She’s All That?).
Assuming, however, that Hollywood, Robin Williams, and George Lucas will always put out terrible films, we can forgive 1999 for including such waste.
Nevertheless, I challenge you to name a better year in movies.
I think, comparing, say, Academy nominations or critic’s lists for a given year, could rule some years right out (2002, anyone?). It may turn out at the end of the day that 1984 really does top 1999 (and 1939 too) for greatest film year. But not without my assertions first!
By the way, if you think I’m just a lowly philosopher with no real cred to rank film years, maybe you want to get my twin brother, the film expert, Galen’s take on the whole shebang. Well, he agrees that 1999 was the best year for film in recent memory. (Raspberries). BUT, he insists I’m wrong with my top five for 1999. HE thinks the top five films of 1999 are:
Galen’s Top Five for 1999:
Bringing out the Dead
Eyes Wide Shut
Titus
Run, Lola Run
Magnolia/Being John Malkovich (another tie!)
Pratfalls
[1] It should be noted: Nashawaty doesn’t argue for 1984 either; Nashawaty makes a list–with embedded clips. To argue would be to support a premise with, well, supporting premises. But these types of polemic/counter-polemic discussions rarely demonstrate one point of view to another beyond a reasonable doubt.[2] Now, I recognize a couple of things. 1. Kevin Smith has never been a great director, but he’s well known and he’s important for independent cinema. That maybe his worst film (Dogma) ended the decade of independent cinema he helped invigorate, rings poetic. 2. I hate Robert Altman. Maybe not the man (but I’m not ruling it out), but definitely his filmmaking. I could write an entire blog about my feelings toward Robert Altman’s films. Nevertheless, people tend to like both Kevin Smith and Robert Altman. So, while the men perpetually disappoint me, they did contribute to 1999’s year of film.
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