The Amazon Prime platform fortunately conceals, to the delight of moviegoers and other curious people, many films that have marked the history of cinema, to different degrees. Here are five.
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The Amazon Prime catalog contains, to the delight of discerning moviegoers and the curious, many masterpieces of cinema; some having left their mark, to varying degrees, on the history of cinema. Here are five.
JFK (1991)
Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, the New Orleans prosecutor, Jim Garrison, questions the report of Commissioner Warren. The latter had closed the deal by finding the perfect culprit, Lee Harvey Oswald. However, before being shot in his turn by a sniper, the suspect had always denied his guilt. For Garrison, it is impossible that the man acted alone ...
When it left in 1991, Oliver Stone's JFK caused a lively controversy. The filmmaker has been criticized a great deal for intentionally adding facts and mishandling historical facts. It must be said that the thesis defended by him and other conspiracy theorists is provocative to say the least: JFK was in fact the victim of a coup, in which the Vice-president, Lyndon B. Johnson, would have been involved , with the avowed aim of having a free hand to start the Vietnam War. In an attempt to exonerate himself from these accusations, Stone also published an annotated version of his script shortly after the film's release, in which he justifies all of his additions.
In December 1991 Stone screened his film for members of Congress. Driven by public opinion awakened by the resounding success of the film, Congress demanded the publication of all the files on the affair which remained secret. On October 27, 1992, a few days before the presidential election, George Bush signed a law authorizing the examination and publication of archives in the Kennedy case: l ' Assassination Materials Disclosure Act. It is extremely rare that a film has such a significant impact, which is more political. Carried by a fantastic bunch of comedians among whom Kevin Costner camps an imperial Jim Garrison, JFk is a conspiracy masterpiece. And we've never done better since.
The Gate of Paradise (1980)
In 1979, Michael Cimino is the most courted man in Hollywood, after the harvest of Oscars carried out by his absolute masterpiece, Voyage to the end of Hell. Barely two years later, he becomes a real pariah. What happened between the two? The Gate of Paradise. In short, some still do not forgive Cimino for this cruel demystification of the American West, or for having caused the bankruptcy of the United artists, the legendary studio founded by Charles Chaplin, D.W. Griffith and Mary Pickford, due to its multiple budget overruns. Throughout the filming, Michael Cimino showed perfectionism bordering on madness or megalomania. 50 shots of the same scene, repair of the spacings between the buildings of a street because their gaps were not the right one, meadow squarely repainted because judged not green enough ... Between reality and the wildest rumors, the shooting of film logically fueled all the speculation.
The editing was just as epic since Cimino, possessing the "Final cut", posted an armed guard in front of the editing room who was ordered not to let anyone in from United Artists. The studio was horrified when it discovered the very first montage of the film, from 220h of rush, with a duration of 5h25. Obviously an unusable time, forcing Cimino to bring the assembly under duress to 219 min. This montage was only screened once at the premiere in New York on November 19, 1980. Murdered by critics, the film came out in theaters six months later, in a 149-minute montage. But the damage was already done: the bad publicity and the murderous critics of the premiere had already ruined the career of the film. Archetype of the cursed film that literally killed the filmmaker's career - even if he was able to get back on the saddle with the extraordinary Year of the Dragon -, The Gate of Paradise remains to this day one of the greatest films in the history of American cinema and even of cinema in short, of an absolutely overwhelming beauty and melancholy. And if you are lucky enough to be able to enjoy it on a big screen, it's even better, just to enjoy the landscapes of Wyoming where the film was shot, beautiful to cry.
Schindler's List (1994)
Among these films which have marked the history of cinema, Schindler's List undoubtedly occupies a special place; even appearing in the top 100 of the best films of all time, according to the Hollywood bible that is the Hollywood Reporter. In 1982. Steven Spielberg triumphed at the World Box Office with E.T. It was also this year that he discovered a work by an Australian author, Thomas Keneally: Schindler's List, translated into France in 1984. The story of Oskar Schindler, a convinced Nazi industrialist, who ultimately saved some 1,300 Jews from deportation by swallowing up his fortune. A story that upsets him and that he wishes to adapt to the cinema; But "not feeling emotionally ready" -as he will say himself-, he long sought to entrust the film project to other directors, before changing his mind.
When Spielberg officially announced that he was going to make a film about the Holocaust, many people reacted with indignation. Like the World Jewish Congress, which outright forbids him from touring Auschwitz. It is that at the beginning of the 90s, Spielberg's image was then too marked by the Blockbusters that he had chained for several years. A film about the Holocaust by the director of E.T. and Indiana Jones? Impossible to take it seriously. "If it is impossible to tell about the Holocaust, it would have been a sin not to try" Spielberg said when the film was released on American screens in December 1993. And to add: "23% of American high school students have never heard of the Holocaust." In March 1994, when it was released in France, the film was at the heart of an intense and violent debate between intellectuals on the representation or not of the Holocaust on screen, but also on the collective memory, the notion of testimony and the pedagogy towards the younger generations.
Beyond these Franco-French controversies, which were ultimately somewhat vain, the film was crowned with seven Oscars, including that of Best Director and Best Film. Worn by the inhabited incarnation of a formidable Liam Neeson in the title role (and even let's say it straightforwardly the role of his life), and supported in particular by the extraordinary composition of Ralph Fiennes, absolutely terrifying in his role of Camp Commander Amon Goeth, Schindler's List is Spielberg's most mature and mature film; the hardest also, of course, carrying an emotional charge to split the stones in half. But without ever falling into the trap of emotional manipulation. A work which in any case made it possible to create the Foundation for the Visual History of Holocaust Survivors, a non-profit organization which has the function of collecting archives of filmed testimonies of survivors of the Holocaust. To date, it is one of the largest in the world. A historic and salutary scope therefore, for an immense work.
The Last Emperor (1987)
In 1981, Bernardo Bertolucci suffered a big failure with his film The Tragedy of a ridiculous man; a work which had however won the great actor Ugo Tognazzi an award at the Cannes festival. Scalded, the filmmaker leaves for the United States, where he first tries to adapt The Red Harvest, a work by Dashiel Hammett. It is there that he finally falls on the autobiography of Aisin Gioro Puyi, ascended to the throne at the age of 3, the last representative of a dynasty ruling China from 1644 to 1912, the year he was overthrown by a coup d'etat making China a Republic. And who will end his life as a simple gardener, before dying in general indifference in 1967. A story that is at once grand, tragic and epic.
From a ten-hour mini-series, the project is finally adapted to the format of a feature film. First western work to have received the full collaboration of the Chinese authorities since 1949, The Last Emperor also the first film to have been shot in the Forbidden City; that is to say the symbolic significance. Worn by sublime music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, crowned with 9 Oscars, including those for Best Film and Best Director, César for Best Foreign Film, 19,000 extras and 9,000 costumes, The Last Emperor is, to this day, one of the largest frescoes ever made in the cinema. We can even say that after this film, Bertolucci never again found the state of grace he experienced, with a triumph not far from being planetary.
The Teeth of the Sea (1975)
In the summer heat of a summer night, teenagers get drunk and have fun together around a campfire on the beach. While her boyfriend, dead drunk, sleeps on the sand, the young Chrissie decides to take a midnight swim. After all, what can happen if it doesn't get far from the beach? The next day, his body was spit out by the sea, excruciatingly mutilated by a shark. A monster with black and dead eyes that rises from the depths ...
Released in the middle of the summer season in 1975, Les Dents de la mer literally paralyzed more than one spectator in his chair, while also triggering a movement of anxiety in the seaside resorts. "This summer, you will not go swimming" proclaimed one of the terribly effective catchlines of the film's advertising posters ... Spielberg said he had the sensation on the set of being able to lead future spectators with electric shock. A bet largely met, helped by a brilliant staging, but above all supported by an extraordinary soundtrack, incredibly suggestive, which actually raises the tension in the viewer. Halfway between the thriller and the horror film, Jaws made history in cinema for smashing Box Office records, becoming the first to cross the symbolic mark of $ 100 million in American revenues, and more than $ 460 million in total worldwide. A new era was then opening. It was not until 1977 and a certain Star Wars that "Bruce", the affectionate nickname given by the production to the film's false shark, was finally taken down from its pedestal. 45 years after its release, the film brand is still as strong and indelible, not even altered by the multiple TV reruns.
