TEN FILMS THAT CHANGED CINEMA AND THE CULTURE OF AMERICA

It is ironic that the science and art of making movies all began as a small curiosity to determine “if horses have all four legs off the ground at the same time when they are trotting.” In 1872, the millionaire, Leland Stanford, began buying race horses and he became so intrigued by this question that he hired Edward Mubridge, a still photographer, to find the answer by taking a series of pictures of one of his horses in motion. And so the beginning of motion picture technology was born although the first images were crude because of the film speed needed to capture the trotting horse who indeed did have all four legs off the ground at the same time.

It wasn’t until 1877 that Mubridge improved his camera by adding shutters and more sensitive film that he was able to obtain stunning images that moved and he even invented a projector that showed his pictures and thus was cinema born. Others including Thomas Edison began to add and invent new techniques and the first movie to actually tell a story was a short ten minute Western called The Great Train Robbery in 1903. The film also employed a dramatic sequence where a bandit fires his gun directly at the camera and the audience, an event which must have been an astonishing revelation for the spectators of that time. You can watch it on YouTube and imagine that it is 1903.

And so, in advance of the 84th Academy Awards Presentation next week, I submit my list of the ten films that went on to change the movies and, at the same time, the culture of America.

Mash-up Preview – “Drive w/ Star Wars”

This is a great mash-up preview to “Drive”, with “Star Wars” thrown in the mix.

THE TEN BEST SCIENCE FICTION FILMS OF ALL TIME

There were a few experiments with science fiction films in the early days of Hollywood but the genre really came into its own during the 1950s. This was mainly because of the sudden appearance of a large number of UFO sightings across the nation and also because of the earlier invention of the atomic bomb and the after effects it was known to cause. Many such movies during that decade were so-called B pictures made on a low budget with crude visual effects. But many were also top grade material that still hold up today such as The War of the Worlds, The Thing, and The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and they were destined to be remade later in the century with new computer special effects.

The Ten Best Movies of the 1970s

The 1970s showed continuing tension in the cold war with the Soviet Union but The Vietnam War was finally coming to a close. Richard Nixon became the first man to ever resign from the presidency in 1974 beginning a period of time when citizens no longer trusted their government. There were gasoline shortages in the United States so massive that people would have to wait in long lines for hours in order to fill their gas tanks and some people ran out of gas while they were waiting. And the King of Rock & Roll died in 1979.

The film industry was still going strong bolstered by the continued rise of independent producers and the wave of the new, young and innovative writer/directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg who were taking over the film industry. The movie moguls of the old Hollywood system were losing control over the industry as their struggling studios were being taken over by huge business conglomerates.

The following list must necessarily leave out many fantastic films that appeared during the decade and the only way to narrow the list for me was to judge the impact that they had on movie goers and society. We may have to change future lists from ten to twenty! Here goes!