I have a Master’s degree in film studies. Hey, I heard there was a lot of money in it! Seriously, my three-plus years dissecting not only films but film itself with my fellow graduate student eggheads effectively crippled for many years my ability to enjoy movies. I would cringe whenever someone asked me what my favorite ones were because my film-theory-addled head just couldn’t reduce the answer to something as simplistic as a few actual titles. “Well,” I’d sheepishly reply, “it’s rather complicated.”
But lately I’ve been giving some thought to the matter of “my favorite films” and what, exactly, that means. I’m beginning to feel, for example, that it will be Very Important for me to provide Ray with a well-rounded cinematic education. I have this vision of me staying up late one night with an older version of the boy. The room is dark but for the bluish glow of the TV. We are armed with an enormous bowl of popcorn and we are watching something like Double Indemnity.
“But why did she double-cross him, daddy?” he will ask.
“Because dames are nothing but trouble, my son,” I’d reply sagely. “Nothing but trouble.”
What films will I insist that he watch with me? Will they be my actual “favorite” ones, or movies that I feel are “good” or “important,” or what? And what’s the difference? Shouldn’t the fact that I really like a movie mean that it’s somehow “good?” Why is it that I don’t actually like watching a lot of the really “important” ones? Should he see those nonetheless?
See what I mean when I say “It’s rather complicated.”
Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll try to work this all out and write a bit about the 25 movies that rank highly for some combination of “my favorite,” “important,” and “good,” and that will therefore constitute Ray’s Essential Movie Viewing List for when he hits an appropriate age. (And for something like Double Indemnity, I’m thinking no younger than 5. Maybe 6.)
