Looking for something to watch? Last night I binge read a series in the New York Times called Gateway Movies. Running since March, each article suggests one or two films to break you into a particular genre or the work of a particular director, and through the course of the article mentions a number of films. One article caught my eye and had to do with staged documentaries, which was, in a way, related to Dick Johnson Is Dead, the last film we discussed with the Merrill Film Society. They recommend Robert Flaherty’s Man of Aran and Orson Welles’s F is for Fake. I love that most of the films are recommended in twos, which is how I often plan film discussions.
Some of the other gateway movies they suggest are the prison escape films of Clint Eastwood and Robert Bresson, the westerns of Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott, In a Lonely Place as a gateway to noir, and Wong Kar-wai’s romantic dramas.
What a great viewing list!
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