We have a lot of reasons for loving Alexander Payne. First, he’s from Omaha, our beloved burg off the coast of the Missouri River. He’s also directed some of the funniest and emotionally honest films of the past decade. And he’s a huge cinephile with a passion for the medium and an encyclopedic knowledge of film history. All of which brings us to our grand opening. For our initial repertory series, we asked Alexander, an early and wonderful supporter of Film Streams, to select ten of his favorite movies. The result is a series featuring some of the most artistically interesting films ever made—and a unique opportunity to experience the big-screen influences that have shaped a contemporary filmmaker whose work we adore. |
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Films In This Series
Seven Samurai
Viridiana
Room at the Top
La Notte
Modern Times
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Wild Bunch
81/2
The Last Detail
To Be or Not to Be
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1954"I still can’t believe it now, fifty-odd viewings later, that a movie can be that good—that ferocious, that delicate, that historical, that timeless, that entertaining, that complete. It goes by quickly precisely because it is so economical, each frame measured and weighed for the story it tells." (Alexander Payne) |
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1961“With the blessing of the Franco government, surrealist director Luís Buñuel returned to Spain after 22 years of exile to make this one film. VIRIDIANA went on to share the top prize at Cannes but was immediately banned by the censors at home. It is one of the most ferocious, subversive, quietly obscene of his career, the greatest possible nose-thumbing to the dictator.” (Alexander Payne) |
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1959Worth seeing just for French actress Simone Signoret’s Oscar-winning performance, it’s a powerhouse British tragedy about class, money and power, and how sex, which is used to get them, traps the user. --Alexander Payne |
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1961Marcello Mastroianni also stars in Michelangelo Antonioni’s look at the breakup of a marriage over a single night during which the couple attend a party. A challenging, rewarding, mysterious film. --Alexander Payne |
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1936“The miracle of cinema is the miracle of Chaplin. For the first time in history, people all over the world, regardless of language, culture, class or race, laughed at the same things at the same times, at a shared humanity—and all without words. His importance cannot be over-estimated. MODERN
TIMES was his last silent film, and since it was made years after the rest of cinema had turned to talkies, it also put an end to an entire tradition.” (Alexander Payne)
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1971Warren Beatty and Julie Christie in Robert Altman’s great, mysterious Western about the opening of a brothel in a Northwest boom town. A landmark film in its use of cinematography and sound for mood and texture. --Alexander Payne |
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1969“THE WILD BUNCH scares me; it has always scared me. It scared me when it originally played at the Omaha Theater downtown and no one would take me to see it because it was too violent... It still scares and intimidates me every time I see it—at least once a year—not only for its violence, the moral ambiguity of its world, and the way men are portrayed—Am I a man, too?—but for the sheer virtuosity of its filmmaking. How could one ever
make a film this good? Sam Peckinpah scares me.” (Alexander Payne) |
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1963Italian director Federico Fellini’s self-portrait never fails to astonish with its technical virtuosity, imagination, and honesty. My other vote for best movie ever made. With Marcello Mastroianni. --Alexander Payne |
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1973Hal Ashby’s uproarious, bittersweet, beautiful story about two Navy lifers ordered to take a childlike, oafish sailor to the brig. A film I watch about twice a year, and my favorite Jack Nicholson performance. --Alexander Payne |
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1942One of the first American movies to deal with the Holocaust—and of course, like THE GREAT DICTATOR, a comedy. From director Ernst Lubitsch, and starring never-better Jack Benny and Carole Lombard. --Alexander Payne |
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