My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Full Disclosure: I’m not much of a movie-goer, and have seen a mere 16 of the titles on Chopra’s list—if memory serves, but it often doesn’t. My point being that I may not be the best judge of what films should be included in such a list.
Be that as it may, I liked this book and its list. First, I found it to be a richly diverse set of films. Given that Chopra works for Indian media, one might expect that the book would be completely dominated by Indian films (fyi–I don’t know much, but I have learned not to lump all of Indian cinema under the term “Bollywood.”) Alternatively, one might expect the list to be ruled by Hollywood because the US has been the 800-pound gorilla of moviemaking since the early days of the industry. It’s true that the US and India are well represented on the list (the US with 34 movies and India with 26,) but Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, France, Mexico, and others are suitably represented (not to mention films produced by / in multiple countries.) (Nigerians and other Africans from countries with filmmaking industries may not agree because Africa isn’t represented, but the fact that the most recent film is 2007 makes me assume the book may not be up to the latest breakthroughs. [My edition is listed as 2013, but I think that’s just the e-publishing date. I’d guess the book came out around the time of the last film on the list, but could be wrong.])
Another aspect of the book’s diversity is the age range; the films are from 1922 to 2007. They don’t seem to be heavily weighted toward the modern day—as is a common defect of such lists. Yet another dimension is diversity of the class and genre of film. By that I mean that the list includes unambiguous classics of cinema like “Citizen Kane,” but it also includes what might be considered less cerebral movies such as “Enter the Dragon” and “Kungfu Hustle.” It also includes comedies and sci-fi movies, which are often under-appreciated by critics. Still, Chopra doesn’t resort to using to box office earnings as a criterion either. Many huge money makers aren’t on the list (e.g. “Titanic.”)
The entries for each film are just a couple of pages, but, in addition to a summary, they include the awards won by the film and a piece of intriguing trivia for each entry. There are some graphics in the form of movie posters and set photos. There isn’t a photo for every entry, but they aren’t that important and, in the case of my little Kindle, the pictures couldn’t be seen well anyway.
I’d recommend this book for anyone who wants a tight list of films to be seen that prominently features international cinema.
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By B Gourley in Book Reviews, Books, cinema, film, movies, nonfiction, Review, Reviews on November 8, 2016.