Political films
The New Republic has published a list of the 100 Most Significant Political films. I thought I would create a complementary list for myself.
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- DirectorAlan J. PakulaStarsDustin HoffmanRobert RedfordJack Warden"The Washington Post" reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Richard Nixon's resignation.will make people sentimental for the days when newspapers could influence public opinion
- DirectorFranklin J. SchaffnerStarsGeorge C. ScottKarl MaldenStephen YoungThe World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton.Wars are nothing if not political, at least for the generals. Patton failed to play the political game, Eisenhower and Bradley succeeded.
- DirectorVolker SchlöndorffStarsMargarethe von TrottaMatthias HabichRüdiger KirschsteinA countess' unrequited love for an army officer leads to disaster.A year after WW I officially ended, von Lhomond and his clan are fighting a hopeless war against the Communists in East Prussia. The final scene is almost unbearable to watch.
- DirectorAlain ResnaisStarsEmmanuelle RivaEiji OkadaStella DassasA French actress filming an anti-war film in Hiroshima has an affair with a married Japanese architect as they share their differing perspectives on war.It's not the Japanese scenes that are memorable in this, it's what happened to the young woman after the Germans left her village.
- DirectorJean-Pierre MelvilleStarsHoward VernonNicole StéphaneJean-Marie RobainIn occupied France, an elderly man and his niece are forced to give shelter to a German army lieutenant who seemingly loves their country and culture.What do you do if a German officer is billetted in your house during the war, and he insists on spouting ridiculous thoughts about culture and Franco-German rapprochement? The old man and his niece (the wonderful Nicole Stephane) remain silent--appropriately.
- DirectorAleksandar PetrovicStarsRomy SchneiderBrad DourifMichel GalabruThe story follows the life of Leni Gruyten, a regular German woman during the 1930s and 40s. Through her interactions with friends, family, and other people she knows, the regular folks' perception of the Nazi era is shown.Romy Schneider gives a fine performance as Leni Pfeiffer, in love with a Russian prisoner in Germany and trying to conceal it.
- DirectorFritz LangStarsRay MillandMarjorie ReynoldsCarl EsmondStephen Neale has just been released from an asylum during World War II in England when he accidentally stumbles onto a deadly Nazi spy plot and tries to stop it.Poor Ray Milland, trying to make his way through a very confusing wartime situation. Who's the Nazi agent, and who isn't?
- DirectorBernardo BertolucciStarsJean-Louis TrintignantStefania SandrelliGastone MoschinA weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.The run-up to the war, in Paris where all sorts of secret agents are operating. Marcello gets the assignment to kill his old professor, and Hamlet-like, can't get down to the job.
- DirectorJean-Pierre MelvilleStarsJean-Paul BelmondoEmmanuelle RivaIrène TuncSet during occupied France, a faithless woman finds herself falling in love with a young priest.Political in all senses: the war, the church trying to enforce conformity, the rise of social conscience among priests. Belmondo and Riva are both stunning as priest and housewife.
- DirectorLouis MalleStarsPierre BlaiseAurore ClémentHolger LöwenadlerIn 1944, an 18-year-old boy from small-town France collaborates with the Gestapo and subsequently falls in love with a Jewish girl.Malle's work of almost genius, marred a bit by the obscurity of some of the Vichy politics. Aurore Clement is exceptional as the love object.
- DirectorAlain CavalierStarsRomy SchneiderJean-Louis TrintignantHenri SerreAfter an unsuccessful assassination, a terrorist and his wife hide on a remote island in the house of a friend who doesn't suspect anything.Romy Schneider again, this time a young wife in Paris at the time of the OAS terrorism. Trintignant gives another scary, obsessed perfomance, as he had done in The Conformist.
- DirectorAndré TéchinéStarsÉlodie BouchezGaël MorelStéphane RideauThe fates of two partners are divided.Algeria, again. The pied noir student Henri hooks up with the wrong girl entirely--she's a Communist living in a small town in southern France. The subplots are fascinating.
- DirectorLouis MalleStarsMaurice RonetLéna SkerlaYvonne ClechDepressed Alain Leroy leaves the clinic where he was detoxified. He meets friends, acquaintances and women, trying to find a reason to continue living. Will this help him?Louis Malle played down the fascist aspects of this story by Drieu La Rochelle when he changed the time from the 30's to the 60's. It's still a powerful story though. Powerful performance by Maurice Ronet.
- DirectorJean-Paul RappeneauStarsCatherine DeneuvePierre BrasseurPhilippe NoiretDuring World War II, just before the liberation of France, a beautiful lady finds herself in the midst of bizarre doings from her admirers.Fun with Catherine Deneuve and Philippe Noiret as the Allies prepare to land in Normandy, June 1944. He gets the danger to the household, she doesn't.
- DirectorBo WiderbergStarsPeter SchildtKerstin TideliusRoland HedlundDuring a strike strike-breakers are being transported to Lunde, where they are assaulted by the strikers. The military are sent in. On the 14th May 1931 there is a confrontation between demonstrators and the military who open fire and five people are killed and five injured.There's a strike in a Swedish town in 1931; it has lasting repercussions for the social order.
- DirectorAndré DelvauxStarsGian Maria VolontèSami FreyJacques LippeIn the sixteenth century, Spain occupies Flanders, an Inquisition enforces the faith. Aging writer and philosopher, Zénon Ligre, comes to Bruges using a false name and papers to serve as a physician to the poor, establishing a clinic and steam bath. His methods and opinions are outside the mainstream, but he has the protection and friendship of the local Prior. Zénon, an aristocrat with a degree in canon law, lives humbly. He learns of bacchanals under Masonic signs involving monks and women, and he warns those involved. The Prior is dying, and he urges Zénon to flee to England. Zénon burns his writing. Will he leave or will he face ecclesiastical accusers and, perhaps, the stake?Marguerite Yourcenar's novel filmed with taste; renaissance Holland under Spanish occupation is suffering from oppression. Zenon is trying to spread the new knowledge, while the Inquisition is trying to stifle it. Political before there was the concept of politics, really.
- DirectorIrving PichelStarsNiall MacGinnisJohn RuddockPierre LefevreBiopic of German priest Martin Luther (Niall MacGinnis), covering his life between 1505 and 1530 A.D., and the birth of the Protestant Reformation movement.The most important political-cultural act of the last millenium: Luther's 95 theses posted in 1517.
- DirectorMarcelo GomesStarsJoão MiguelPeter KetnathMadalena AcciolyA road movie about a German man who went to the Northeast of Brazil in 1942 to sell Aspirin.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsTimothy TreadwellAmie HuguenardWerner HerzogA devastating and heart-rending take on grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, who were killed in October of 2003 while living among grizzly bears in Alaska.The new politics of the environment and species protection. Tim Treadwell was simply the wrong man to take up the cause of bears in Alaska.
- DirectorTodd HaynesStarsJulianne MooreXander BerkeleyDean NorrisAn affluent and unexceptional homemaker in the suburbs develops multiple chemical sensitivity.Todd Haynes's wonderful study of just how far a woman might go to feel healthy. We watch Julianne Moore self-destruct with sympathy and a bit of horror.
- DirectorBernardo BertolucciStarsRobert De NiroGérard DepardieuDominique SandaThe epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth-century Italy as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides.Bertolucci always had the dramatic sense; here he just spends too much time on secondary characters.
- DirectorPreston SturgesStarsJoel McCreaVeronica LakeRobert WarwickHollywood director John L. Sullivan sets out to experience life as a homeless person in order to gain relevant life experience for his next movie.Joel McCrae has to cope with some pretty hard situations in The US of the 'thirties
- DirectorRené ClémentStarsMaria SchellFrançois PérierJany HoltA poor laundrywoman tries to cope with a depressing burden of society.
- DirectorClaude BerriStarsRenaudGérard DepardieuMiou-MiouIn mid-nineteenth-century northern France, a coal mining town's workers are exploited by the mine's owner. One day, they decide to go on strike, and the authorities repress them.
- DirectorClaude BerriStarsPhilippe NoiretGérard DepardieuMichel BlancAfter World War II, a small French village struggles to put the war behind as the controlling Communist Party tries to flush out Petain loyalists. The local bar owner, a simple man who likes to write poetry, who only wants to be left alone to do his job, becomes a target for Communist harassment as they try and locate a particular loyalist, and he pushes back.A very solid political film set in France in 1945 with Depardieu, Luchini (as a fanatical Communist) and the cynical profiteer Guiomar.