Top 10 films

Recently, cinema has become one of my main passions. I'm gradually becoming more of a cinephile, but I'm still not all the way there, so this list is far from complete or definite. This list, I must make clear, is a personal selection from what I've encountered and what I've liked the most. Other directors I will be looking into this year are Ingmar Bergman, Tarkovsky, Jean Renoir, Sam Fuller, Eisenstein, Louis Malle and many, many more. I'm rather pissed off at LOVEFILM as they were extremely reliable last year, but they're not sending me the Tarkovsky movies I want to watch..... Anyway, here's the list...

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10

Psycho

Written by Joseph Stepfano and Samuel A. Taylor; Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

No matter how endlessly emulated or talked-about, you can never escape the sheer brilliance of that shower scene and the scintillating Bernard Hermann score... The neurotic protagonist is brilliant and disturbing, and Hitchcock's psychological revelations towards the end of the film are subtly suggested throughout the rest of the film.

9

The Producers

Written and directed by Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks insists that the horrors of the holocaust can be meliorated and alleviated through comedy and satire. He may be right, considering how downright hilarious the song-and-dance 'Springtime for Hitler' routine is. An accountant and a producer realise that they can make more money with a flop than a hit, but if backfires! The script they chose eulogizing Hitler turns out to be a monster hit! Along with The Big Lebowski and Brooks' even sillier outing Blazing Saddles, this is a film I know entirely off by heart.

8

The Second Heimat

Written and directed by Edgar Reitz

Recently reviewed in my blog, this film has the claim of being the longest picture ever made - clocking in at about 25 hours. But you can also digest it in its television format which is divided across 13 episodes. Set from 1960 until 1970, it follows the young musical prodigy Hermann trying to pursue a career as a composer, meeting several characters in his university studies. The film, like its predecessor, alternates from black and white to colour to achieve a lush and unprecedented artistic effect.

7

The Big Lebowski

Written and directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Endlessly watchable, this film follows the life of ageing hippie Jeff 'The Dude' Lebowski who, after getting his rug soiled by some goons, embarks on Chandler-esque plot roughly ignited by the hostage of a pornographic actress by some nihilists, and so much more which is, frankly, confusing and irrelevant. But this film is meant to be confusing, and the underlying storyline is merely a pretext for the highly charismatic central characters to interact. The Coens splice everything in their signature style: Chandler, post-modernism, dream sequences and so much more. A cult classic.

6

Bicycle Thieves

Written by Vittorio De Sica, Cesare Zavattini, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Gerardo Guerrieri, Oreste Biancoli and Adolfo Franci; Directed by Vittorio De Sica

One of the central films of Italian Neo-realist cinema, this a truly heart-wrenching portrait of poverty and a struggle to survive. Using amateur actors, it is greatly involving and deeply moving. It is no surprise that the Academy Awards felt compelled to award it with 'Outstanding foreign film' seven years before the existence of the category.

5

A Man Escaped

Written and directed by Robert Bresson

Quiet, sparse, contemplative, minimalist.... You know the ending by its title and everything else that occurs in the film, but Bresson manages to overwhelm the viewer with a magnificently restrained style... not to mention the sublime Mozart score.

4

Aguirre, The Wrath of God

Written and directed by Werner Herzog

Herzog's riches achievement, this is a hectic journey into the heart of darkness. Aguirre is a crazed obsessive searching for a futile, doomed quest neither he nor any of his followers are capable of obtaining. Not only is it astonishing to look at in terms of framing, but this is the most important film starring the unforgettable narcissist Klaus Kinsky.

3

Alphaville

Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard

Lemmy Caution enters the topsy-turvy world of Alphaville, where everything is seemingly different. The concept of the individual has been lost, and anyone speaking up is murdered in strange ways. Also, dictionaries are bibles, love is replaced by sensuality, women are bar-coded and words are replaced.... Far stranger than anything in1984. There are allusions to everything under the sun, although these can go over your head and won't hinder the enjoyment of the film. The best segments from the film are often the confrontations the protagonist has with Alpha 60, a computer which gives Borgesian monologues about time and space.

2

Blue Velvet

Written and directed by David Lynch

This is a film which shows the underlying darkness fervidly thriving beneath the superficial calmness and tranquility of suburbia. The gateway into this underworld is a severed ear...

1

2001: A Space Odyssey

Written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke; Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Astounding sets that awe the viewer as much now as they did in 1969; astounding classical music, both modern and romantic; an astounding ending which is open to interpretation; and the monolith.... This is far more than a mere science fiction movie, this is dazzling.

Runners-up: Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino; Branded to Kill by Seijun Suzuki; A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick; Citizen Kane by Orson Welles; Annie Hall by Woody Allen; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie by Luis Bunuel; Videodrome by David Cronenberg; Vivre Sa Vie by Jean-Luc Godard; Barton Fink by the Coen Brothers.

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For some fucked up reason, I can't get the font I want when I list the directors for each film... It appears correctly when I type it up as a draft here, but when I post it it keeps fucking up! Frustrating....

Thoughts on psychosis

Culmination

Psychosis is a culmination of a series of events, thoughts and experiences. In my case, it was also an explosion of anger, hidden feelings and despair against the rest of the world. All this culminated in an episode that came and went. People that drift into madness have often made the wrong moves in life, and they have taken the wrong decisions to get them in a bad situation. Psychosis can often stem from intense solitude; it can stem from forced and concentrated impositions of self-imposed rules. I had an underlying psychosis building up within me for years and years. I hallucinated when I was about 5 years old, affecting my perceptions of reality. After school ended at the age of 16, I slowly withdrew myself from others. By doing this, I expanded my outlook on life considerably. Consequently, these dark tendencies were brought out into the open and gradually became more and more extreme and intense. My angry outbursts became very frequent, and I developed an assortment of 'unhealthy' habits. This kept developing for about a year until I restrained myself, and then came a smorgasbord of racing thoughts and delusional beliefs culminating in my episode.

Natural distortion of reality

An episode is a natural distortion of reality, rather than one induced via chemical means. An episode, or an experience derived from schizophrenia, is often preceded by a build-up of events and issues whereas a drug 'trip' is done instantly. A person with a mental illness is often rather complex, having several layers to themselves and prone to introspection. People who take drugs, who are looking to 'distort' reality, are often merely looking for a 'good' time and a way of spending a good time - often a more refined way of going out and getting drunk. Mental illness is far from a jolly experience and, consequently, a more painful one. It is a far more different and natural distortion of reality than drug-taking. Drugs also disorientate one after having taken the drug; you become more complacent and will often be "at one with the universe". You have trouble between distinguishing what's beautiful and what's not. Mental illness is closer to one's self than "been at one with the universe". It is, therefore, a more natural distortion of reality.

Delusional thoughts

My episode's main drive was delusional thoughts. In the mind of the individual, everything he perceives is the truth. When this interior truth gets out of hand and doesn't correspond with normal, everyday life there is a clash between interior and exterior worlds... Before my episode, an assortment of delusional thoughts crossed my mind. To start off with, I thought I'd caused a controversy with my writing and that I a documentary about me and an old MSN contact had been made where we played games and tricks on one another. I thought also that by using the basis of Julio Cortázar's Rayuela, a psychologist had arranged together a whole crop of young teenagers who were confronting the education system by playing child-like games on each other on an intellectual level. These thoughts got out of hand after staying up for three days, and they got even more extreme. I thought that ininity had arrived and that I'd live forever by reading every single book on earth, and that I'd kill my English teacher with my 'terrorist novel'. This all came to me after having a conversation with my mother who rather miracolously got me to sleep through a strong dose of medication that got me to sleep after staying up for 3 nights. The day after, I wrote out all my delusional thoughts which alluled to several artists I liked as god. This day I got taken to a psychiatric ward where I thought I'd sleep for years until 2156, the year derived from the chapter where I thought I'd appeared in Cortázar's Rayuela. When I woke up in the psychiatric ward where I kept doing inexplicable, odd things and I kept having these delusional thoughts. My behaviour alarmed people so much that I got taken to an intensive care unit in Derby. I remember been driven there: I was at the back of the van, looking out into the motorway not only thinking it was 2156, but getting numerous other delusional thoughts as well. Before getting into the main part of the unit, I was locked in a 'de-escalation room', where I thought would be some sort of contact with Jorge Luis Borges. Throughout my stay in the unit and later in other wards, my delusional thoughts slowly diminished their potency.... They are very difficult to articulate.

Repression of thoughts

An episde can often emerge from repression of thoughts. There are many disturbing parts of our nature that we do not want to acknowledge, and these often surface out in the episode. Many niggling worries we may have during our childhood may surface again and haunt us. The fact that I had an hallucination at a young age shows how something can be ingrained deep within the subconscious and emerge more than a decade later.

Racing thoughts

In the three nights I stayed up, my thoughts were racing constantly. They prompted me to walk in all directions of the house, constantly thinking over and over and over. When thoughts are bombard at you at this speed, it is diffcult to keep control and this results in the culmination I mentioned before.

Loss of control

Psychosis is characterised by how little control the person has over his actions. Consequently, there is a loss of time too. Like dreams and LSD hallucinations, one doesn't seem to be within a discerinble beginning, middle or end. I had no idea of the dates or the month for the first couple of weeks I was in the intensive care unit. One can often find onself acting with no real motive, and one can find oneself screaming or acting out strange behaviour without any conscious self-awareness.

Outer appearance

A lot of deception and ignorance about mental illness stems from the outer appearance of a person victim of the illness. Before been transferred to a psychiatric ward to Chesterfield I was placed in one in Derby, and I found that the patients were often left to their own resources and ignored. These people were, it seemed to me, worse off than in the intensive care unit, a place where the level of attention is far more intense and concentrated. Most psychiatrists are often so filled with prejudices that they will apply mentally ill people with a label due to their outer appearance, and they will take for granted the underlying personality of the individual. Mentally ill people can often seem threatening, but people choose to ignore what kind of sheer incredible workings go on in the inside of the mind that is far more interesting than the workings of the mind of the vast amount of the rest of the population.

The Aftermath No. 1: Psychiatric wards/Intensive care units

After an episode, a person will often inevitably find themselves in a ward or, worse, an intensive care unit. Often, these places can seem as an expansion of one's own imagination - as if it's part of the episode itself. Sooner or later, this is shattered and you must come face to face with reality. An intensive care unit, in particular, is extremely hard work; you spend every single minute craving for some sort of space - it's restrictive as hell. Yet at the same time, you develop a strange kind of affinity for it and attempt to adapt to new, constraining environments.

The aftermath No. 2: Medication

While I was at the intensive care unit, I consumed a lot of medication which caused me to shake, slur my speech, avoid concentration (I couldn't read at all while I was at the unit), and I couldn't get erections. The doctors have all told me that they did a fantastic job, but I think that the reason for why I sorted myself out was a conscious decision to start and look at things logically. After getting discharged, I was prescribed with olanzapine which made me life considerably more mundane... In a way, two years after my episode, I find that I've got to fight against this medication in order to obtain greater things. With these meds I found my creativity wane, I often felt drowsy and found it difficult to stay up at nights.

Encounters with idiosyncratic people

Before I found myself at the wards, I felt a great deal of contempt against the rest of the world... This contempt could often veer towards misanthropy. However, when entering the wards I found an assortment of idiosyncratic people. It was enlightening to come across people who thought in their own peculiar way... I remember the fat black man who stank of shit, Dennis, keeping an eye on me and conjuring up remarks charged with wisdom... When getting discharged, I was disappointed by the mentality of other people...

A good or bad experience?

I think it was a good experience to have had an episode, as it expanded my outlook considerably: it both expanded my outlook considerably, acquainted myself with a variety of thoughts and exposed me to visions no-one else has seen. The bad experiences are these 'aftermaths' and consequences of an episode. Ultimately, all psychotic episodes are singular so it is an incredible privilege to have come across visions and perception no-one has seen or known about.

The remote edges #6

Taking these photographs is starting to hinder the enjoyment I get from these walks... I miss being able to wander along happily without any preoccupations... I may postpone this regular temporarily because the weather may prevent me from visiting these places.... we'll see.

This wood is situated at the start of a ginormous valley... It is quite big. After 3-odd years of visiting it I know my way around it, so I shall try as hard as I can to give a precise record of what's here.