#65: Rushmore

(Wes Anderson, 1998)

There are only a handful of movies in the Criterion Collection I've seen more than Rushmore, yet I haven't put it on in at least four years, since I'm just getting around to writing about it now. This is probably the longest I've gone without seeing it since its release in 1998, opening night in Century City, where it was running for one week to allow Bill Murray to qualify for the Oscars (his snub for this performance remains a total joke). Having seen the film so many times, it's hard to remember what my first response was to it beyond loving it - I do remember that as a budding Kinks fan the soundtrack was especially impressive - but in multiple viewings since I've come to believe there are few movies as successfully executed as this little character piece. Wes Anderson was only 29 when he made it, but his skill and - perhaps even more importantly - his discipline as a filmmaker were already fully formed. His use of flat perspective mixed with subtle handheld work merged an indie aesthetic with a distinct storytelling visual palate that allowed the tone of the film to match up perfectly with its cinematography; Anderson is at once highly stylistic and not at all flashy, twee for the indie generation but devoid of his later films' preciousness (detractors would argue with this last point, but comparatively there's no contest).

Although Anderson's sure hand (and his and Owen Wilson's vision of the story) is what makes Rushmore so impressive from a filmmaking perspective, the movie is largely held together by two impressive performances. It would be entirely impossible to imagine anyone as Max Fischer other than Jason Schwartzman, who inhabits the role so much that he's been trying to run away from it ever since to no avail. Meanwhile, Bill Murray is so funny, so heartbreaking, and so lovable that he's been using the same routine for the last fifteen years, nearly winning an Oscar for a far inferior film in the process. The relationship between the two characters manages to feel authentic and natural without much in the way of exposition; this is mainly thanks to Murray, who looks at Schwartzman with an endearing stare of bemusement and longing - for his own youth just as much as for Schwartzman's. He loves Max because he understands him, but he also envies his naïveté and courage. He wants to be Max far more than Max wants to be him, even after he gets the girl.

Rushmore is not the towering achievement many of the best films in the Criterion Collection manage to be, yet it is one of the few perfect films in the set. It's especially impressive because it's lack of ambition never gets in the way of the power of its story. Over the past decade and a half, this has turned out to be the key to Wes Anderson's immense talent; Max says early on in Rushmore that "I guess you just gotta find something you love to do and do it for the rest of your life. For me that's going to Rushmore." For Anderson, it's producing quirky semi-nostalgic character portraits of characters struggling with their identities (usually wrapped up in parent issues). There is a case to be made that the messy but brilliant The Royal Tennenbaums is Anderson's crowning achievement, but every film he's made after Rushmore is a response to this one, because it is a perfect execution of his voice. There were probably only two other filmmakers who produced great, truly unique work in the US in the 90s, not coincidentally also with their second features: Quentin Tarantino with Pulp Fiction and Paul Thomas Anderson with Boogie Nights. Both of those films are great, but unquestionably messy affairs - it's Wes Anderson with his quiet story and dogged focus who produced the exact film he intended to make. Although its reputation has been somewhat diminished by complaints that his style has devolved into a schtick, what's actually onscreen never fails to enchant, and the director's choices for set design, costumes, music, and even cinematography make the film as timeless as it seemed when it was first released. Rushmore is one of the best-known and most-owned films in the Collection, but even that assessment understates its value to the series. It's the gold standard for contemporary film for Criterion, and fifteen years later it's every bit the masterpiece it appeared to be upon its release.

#60: Autumn Sonata

(Ingmar Bergman, 1978)

Autumn Sonata is an infinitely better movie than Precious. Let's get that out of the way now.

Okay, that being said, let's talk about movies that punch you in the gut just because it seems like a fun thing to do. Autumn Sonata, like Bergman's earlier Cries and Whispers, is the kind of film you need to watch an episode of Entourage after viewing, just to clear your head of the bad thoughts (or any thoughts, really). Combining mentally challenged people, dysfunctional families, and stunted emotional growth with topics ranging from abortion to rape, the movie is so spiritually draining that it becomes extremely difficult viewing, even as it holds your attention completely throughout its running time.

Are movies like these really worthwhile? At a certain point, Precious, which did not have the benefit of a director who ranks among the ten or fifteen greatest of all time and two actresses that have similarly high-level talents, becomes so over-the-top tragic that it takes on a pedantic tone that turns the film into medicine instead of art, though the medicine is there for a sickness that doesn't really exist. Finally, it just ends up tasting bad for no reason. The question then becomes whether or not this effect is tied to the technique and artfulness of the film. In other words, does Autumn Sonata avoid the ditch Precious drives into, simply because it is a far better executed and intelligent movie?

Mainly because this is a difficult question to answer, Autumn Sonata isn't quite Bergman's late-era masterpiece (more on that one later) but it does have the kind of confident preciseness and masterful thematic and technical control viewers are rewarded with when an older established filmmaker nears the end of their career. The issues and motivations Bergman is most interested in exploring had been honed over thirty years of filmmaking, and with a film like Autumn Sonata they come so naturally that the movie seems to be both reality show and extended metaphor simultaneously. However, I do think Bergman covered similar themes more successfully in Cries and Whispers, while the piling on of tragedy after tragedy is not as rewarding or worthwhile here as it was there.

The film is also a pairing of Swedish cinema's two most famous (and similarly named) film icons, Ingmar Bergman and Ingrid Bergman, and this is really where its major significance comes into play. Despite the fact that Ingrid plays a horrible woman, her performance is excellent, and she is able to make us feel sorry for her without playing the victim. It's certainly weird to watch her speaking Swedish, but it's also interesting to watch her in a film that is so much more modern than movies I've seen countless times, most notably (of course) Casablanca and Notorious, both of which I have probably seen over 30 times. Seeing this film reminds me that apart from the star system that carried her through so many masterpieces throughout her career, Ingrid was truly a great actress who was beautiful to both the viewer and the camera, and one of the great stars in film history.

The last and most obvious observation I made was just how similar Woody Allen's Bergmanesque films are to this one. Interestingly, Interiors, undoubtedly Allen's most overt tribute to Bergman, was made a year before Autumn Sonata. It's almost as if Bergman saw Allen's film and said, "You think that's Bergman? Here's some fucking Bergmany Bergman."

#71: The Magic Flute

(Ingmar Bergman, 1975)

Let's be realistic here. I tried to keep an open mind, but there was really no way I was going to like this movie.The only thing I appreciate about opera is the grand spectacle experienced first-hand, so transitioning to filmed performance ruins any energy I may have fed off of in the rendition of Mozart's work.

Bergman loved classical music, so it's no surprise to see him literally take a stab at the genre here. Filmmakers of Bergman's generation were still around for the tail end of the glory days of the stage - there are few great directors of the current generation who have the same appreciation for the medium. Since I am of the latter generation, it's not surprising that I wouldn't have the same reaction to this film that I might have had I been born a few decades earlier.

This might seem like a surprising thing to say to people who do love the stage considering the fact that Mozart's opera was originally written hundreds of years ago; surely a few decades cannot erase what a few hundred years couldn't? Yet this is the power of film and television, which have effectively replaced the cultural significance of theater, while only popular music concerts (and, to a lesser degree, stand up and improv comedy) have remained socially relevant as live performance.

Bergman does make an attempt to turn Mozart's work into a cinematic piece, using engaging camera angles and shots of audience members far more enraptured than I was. But ultimately this is still just Mozart's The Magic Flute. If you like that, you'll like this. I don't, so I didn't.

#74: Vagabond

(Agnès Varda, 1985)

This movie is probably my favorite Varda film yet, a deeply sad and moving portrayal of a human being on the margins. It features a remarkable performance by Sandrine Bonnaire (at just 17), who also gave an excellent performance two years earlier in À nos amours, and includes a number of professional and amateur actors who form a stunning and memorable ensemble. But the movie is entirely Varda's, and it's a remarkable display of thirty years of film experience.

Vagabond begins with Bonnaire's character, whom we later find out was named Mona, being found dead in a ditch by the side of the road. The remainder of the film is a flashback to her final months, intercut with documentary style thoughts of the people she has encountered. These thoughts are always offered once Mona has already moved on, and this to me is the essential structure of the film, perpetually one step behind this character, struggling to understand someone who lives life in a way that we are all either too smart or too cowardly to take up ourselves. Unlike junkies or criminals or crazy people, drifters are immediately understandable to people because their inability to take on responsibility or make an emotional connection mirrors our own frustration with these aspects of our lives, and the notion of total freedom is an unavoidable temptation. We all wish we had the courage to do it, even though we simultaneously know that it would never be as exciting or enjoyable as it seems. Much like poor people prefer to keep the taxes for rich people low because they might be rich someday, we hold out hope that we might one day take to the road, meet interesting people, take on interesting jobs, and live our lives with no responsibilities and no baggage.

Varda understands both sides of this perception, and makes no judgments on Mona or her way of life, instead preferring to struggle with her own place in society. It's what makes Vagabond more than an excellent character study, instead morphing it into an examination of our own fears and dreams. We reject dirt because we know we have to survive in our society, we believe in a hard day's work because if we don't then we'll starve. We insist on turning our backs on Mona, because there are too many Monas to help. One of the Criterion essays compared the film to Citizen Kane, and while the structural comparison is obvious, the more insightful point is that both films aren't so much about their titular characters as they are about the societies that surround them. Vagabond isn't about how someone becomes a drifter (we only learn that in vague terms here), just as Citizen Kane certainly isn't about why people become rich. Instead, the film is about our own place in society, the human connections we struggle to make, and a desperate desire to understand our place in the world.

#72: Le Million

(René Clair, 1931)

I almost hated Le Million. OK, maybe not hated, but it's never a good idea to thrust a musical on me unexpected. I had no idea there was singing involved in Le Million, and when people randomly break into song, well, I tend to get angry. The first half of the movie didn't go particularly well for me. "Why can't they just talk?" was a common refrain.

Then I relaxed and let an obviously brilliant movie made by a clearly innovative and inventive director wash over me. Le Million isn't contemporary the way some films will remain forever. It is most certainly of its time. But it's light and fresh as the day it was made, more of an anachronism than an artifact whose appeal has long since been lost to time. I was genuinely interested in how the film would end, and completely delighted by the process of getting there.

The most famous scene in Le Million is probably the scene in which the jacket containing the million dollar ticket is tossed around to a completely non-diagetic football soundtrack. It's incredibly smart, and just as funny as the day it was made. Yet it's also sort of astonishing if you think about it in the context of film history. Imagine, only a few years after sound was established in film, using it as a comedic punchline, playing off the story told visually. This was an entirely new form of comedy, something that, to my knowledge, had never been done before. There are only a few people in film - in history of any kind - who can honestly be credited with the invention of a new way of presenting humor. It makes Clair a much more relevant artist than he has often gotten credit for, as he is often forgotten as a pioneer of French cinema rather than a truly ingenious director who can measure up with other artists.

Le Million isn't quite perfect. I think it was a mistake to give away the ending of the film at the beginning, and I don't understand why his friend is such a dick if there isn't a pay off at the end where he has a chance to redeem himself. But it's still the kind of movie that reminds you that modern filmmakers are standing on the shoulders of giants, many of whom haven't been surpassed yet.

#66: The Orphic Trilogy

(Jean Cocteau, 1930-1959)

It's hard to think of films made 30 years apart with no plot similarities as part of the same trilogy. Certainly when Cocteau made The Blood of a Poet he hadn't intended to make two more films in the same series, and really these films are only thought of as a trilogy because Cocteau himself declared it.

Of course, they are all connected, both thematically and aesthetically, and certainly Testament of Orpheus can be seen as a unique kind of sequel to Orpheus, wherein the creator is asked to answer for his creations. Part of what makes it so easy to attach them to each other is the fact that each explores the same things at many points, and making them a series is much easier than explaining why you repeated yourself. Cocteau subtitled the last film "Do Not Ask Me Why," intending for people to take these films at their face value and stop trying to find a real answer to the mysteries they presented. It's far too easy in art these days to need a "right" interpretation of something, especially since many artists come from school where they are often forced to explain the motivation behind their work. Cocteau was a great filmmaker because he let the work speak for itself, especially when, as was the case with this trilogy, it was speaking of itself.

Links to individual reviews:
The Blood of a Poet
Orpheus
Testament of Orpheus

#69: Testament of Orpheus

(Jean Cocteau, 1959)

I loved this movie for a good portion of its running time, but by the end, I was a little bored. It reminded me of Deconstructing Harry a little bit (which I'm sure was intentional on Woody Allen's part) but it also reminded me that movies were already extremely self-referential in 1959. The opening sequence of Cocteau being unstuck in time is a fascinating twenty or so minutes of film, and there are plenty of other great moments. But there ends up being a few too many backwards shots and a little too much cryptic talking by the end.

Side note: it was a surprise and pleasure to see Jean-Pierre Léaud with a cameo in the film, which was made right after his most famous film, The 400 Blows (and apparently Cocteau, having run out of money, used Truffaut's prize money from that film to finish this one). Léaud is so strongly associated with the New Wave that seeing him in a Cocteau film is a bit like being unstuck in time in its own way.

#68: Orpheus

(Jean Cocteau, 1949)

The second film in Jean Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy comes nearly 20 years after the first, and it's simultaneously exactly the same and totally different from its predecessor. It's also, for me, a real treat, possibly because I enjoy more conventional narratives, especially when they are laced with such absurdity and cinematic flourish.

The movie is kind of the story of Orpheus (though less of a direct adaptation than another Criterion film, Black Orpheus), but it's also very much about creating art and exploring love and death, which many people would probably argue is the same thing. The film manages to feel so unique and yet so accessible that I might tend towards arguing that it is one of the most mainstream experimental films I have ever seen. Yet it also incorporates many of the visual and thematic elements of the earlier, much more cryptic work.

I didn't love love Orpheus, but I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. Just as Blood of a Poet seemed to have so much influence on film, I could see many of the elements here being spread across the coming decades, particularly the way the film deals with ghosts and supernatural events. I also wonder if the "trial" in the underworld was any inspiration for Albert Brooks's great Defending Your Life. But I digress.

#67: The Blood of a Poet

(Jean Cocteau, 1930)

This is a pretty weird movie, and it kind of reminds you, in the same way a film like Un Chien Andalou that cinema has never really gotten more bizarre or experimental than it was at the beginning. Jean Cocteau is mostly associated with the surrealist movement that birthed that earlier film, but I think his work is much more personal and unique. The Blood of a Poet is not really my cup of tea, but it's certainly a fascinating film that transcends its academic ambitions.

The scene in a hallway clearly influenced the recent blockbuster Inception, something which reminded me that films like this are an exploration of art in the way something like launching the first rocket into space paves the way for things like the moon landing and satellites. While I might not enjoy watching these experiments, I can see how valuable the films are to cinema as a whole, just as I can see how exciting it must have been to see a film like this for the first time, or how exciting it still is for those who are more interested in watching brilliant filmmakers grasp in the dark for something special.

This is the first movie in a trilogy that Cocteau would complete later in his career, and while I don't necessarily think I'll enjoy the other films, I'm nevertheless looking forward to them.

#55: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

(Philip Kaufman, 1988)

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a very long movie. This is probably the first thing you will notice when watching it. It's not unusual (especially these days, in the age of powerful and narcissistic directors) for a movie to be nearly three hours. But many of those movies don't feel like three hours, or at least seem like they need to be that long in order to tell their epic story. Before it is anything else, The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a movie that feels too long. This is despite the fact that I was often entertained by the film, and would be hard-pressed to identify the scenes that Kaufman (who directed the similarly massive The Right Stuff) could afford to cut.

Actually, I think The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a rather good film, which I guess makes it stranger that I have this odd sense that it should be shorter. Roger Ebert often says that no good movie is too long and no bad movie is too short, and while I think that's true, I also think a mediocre movie can be made into a good movie by judicious trimming. In this case, I think a solid movie could have become a great movie at 30 minutes less running time.

Part of the reason the film feels overly long is that the scope is rather narrow. The film is essentially about three people, played wonderfully by Daniel Day-Lewis, Lena Olin, and Juliette Binoche. Olin in particular gives a subtle and beautiful performance that could be easily overlooked, but I feel she is the heart of the film, and not only because she ends up with crucial knowledge in the final, tragic sequence. The film has often been called the most erotic "art" film since Last Tango in Paris, and I was similarly unenthusiastic about the sex here, which feels either overblown or vaguely empty. It does often seem to be the case that films that are mostly about sex are rarely sexy - Eyes Wide Shut and Crash (1996) come to mind immediately. And here there is a similarly emotional undercurrent to the sex scenes that limit the possibility of arousal - not that I'm looking to interpersonal epics about the Prague Spring for turn-ons. Probably the most intense scene involves Olin and Binoche photographing each other naked. As in other scenes in the film, Kaufman rarely lingers on the nudity, entirely selecting his compositions based on visual and thematic cohesiveness. The lack of fetishization on his part makes the scene much more emotionally intense and personal, as the scene doesn't feel like it is made for anyone but these two women and the absent lover they share. This makes the arrival of Olin's married lover all the more jarring. It's quite the sequence.

As a whole, though, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which was based on a book that was generally considered "unfilmable," constantly refuses to leap from the page. The direct and indirect connections between the emotional lives of these characters and the political background upon which they operate are altogether too literary to come across successfully on screen. Furthermore, the movie's tone feels uneven, which is most likely the reason why the movie feels too long. Of course, there is also the annoying fact that these people really ought to be speaking Czech, but they obviously couldn't have gotten the funding necessary for a Czech-language version of the film.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being was one of the earliest Criterion releases I can remember going out of print. It's not one I think will be particularly missed. It's a good movie, well-made, brilliantly acted, ultimately moving. But it fails to carry any real heft, despite it's fairly weighty running time.

#70: The Last Temptation of Christ

(Martin Scorsese, 1988)

On my way to San Francisco this past weekend, I watched a few DVDs I own, and the first was The Last Temptation of Christ. I've owned it for a number of years, but I've only actually watched my copy once (I had also seen it twice before), not just because I am rarely in the mood for such serious fare, but because it is nearly three hours of deeply serious fare. Still, it's certainly my favorite Scorsese film (though I still have a soft spot for Goodfellas), and quite possibly one of my ten favorite movies ever made.

Not belonging to any organized religion, I feel I can safely bypass any debate about whether or not the film is offensive to Catholics or Christians in general. Personally, I feel that the film is such an intelligent and thoughtful exploration of the nature of faith that it makes no sense at all to me that someone would be offended by the film, but then again I don't believe Jesus Christ is my personal lord and savior, so I'm not really in any place to tell someone who does what to think. I certainly think there is a huge difference between a film like this and a film like Birth of a Nation, to which one (otherwise thoughtful) Christian reviewer compared it, because Scorsese's film seeks to explore intellectual concepts behind the struggles of men that are entirely truthful (avoiding, for a moment, that they are being explored through the personage of Jesus Christ), while Birth of a Nation paints a portrait of humans (avoiding, with the same benefit of the doubt, that it's ostensibly an historical epic) that is entirely opposed to truth and honest human nature. The idea of a Jesus and Judas as presented in The Last Temptation of Christ  may be antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and/or the Church, but they are far from unrecognizable to thoughtful, open-minded people.

More importantly, Birth of a Nation inspired the resurgence of the Klu Klux Klan, causing a renewal of domestic terrorism throughout the South for the next forty or fifty years. The Last Temptation of Christ, on the other hand, paints an extremely favorable picture of the Christian faith to outsiders, a faith that is powerful enough to overcome the most sinister of temptations and doubts. Far too often - especially among fundamentalists - faith is obfuscated behind certainty, making the choices to lead one's life in a moral and pious way seem to be borne out of fear and delusion more than conscious decision to walk the path of the enlightened. Faith as it is portrayed in the film is constantly challenged, desperately denied, but ultimately responsible for salvation. To the outside viewer (and to this I can speak with much more certainty and self-reflection), the Jesus of this film is the empathetic, passionate Jesus, the one who truly loves his father but understands the sacrifice he is about to make. It makes his ultimate choice to do so seem that much more significant, and makes the viewer relate that much more to the pull Jesus's life has over people.

But you see what this film does to people? I just said I wanted to sidestep questions of theology and then proceeded to entirely avoid a discussion of the actual film. This is because there are few films that have been made that so merge both narrative and technique with theme. Unlike something like The Passion of the Christ, which so ignores competent filmmaking and entertaining story at the expense of the theme that it becomes a true slog of a film, Last Temptation is entirely concerned with telling a story in order to illuminate the concepts it wants to explore. This is partially because the later Mel Gibson film takes everything about Jesus that surrounds his crucifixion as a given, while the earlier film must map out this radical portrayal of the son of God.

The best scenes in The Last Temptation of Christ are scenes that merge theme and character. Although many of the most memorable scenes are action-oriented (especially Jesus back on the cross after the final temptation), the most challenging - and exciting - scenes are quiet moments of discussion. The moment in which Jesus tells Judas that God gave Judas the harder job, the moment when Jesus doubts his place as the messiah, and the scene of Jesus confronting Paul in his dream(?) could all spawn full pieces exploring the nature of faith.

But The Last Temptation of Christ is most appealing because of the way in which it unflinchingly - and continuously - challenges the viewers perception not just of Jesus, but of their own relationship with God. With the exception of people who simply cannot get past the subject matter which they find objectionable, I can't imagine anyone - atheist or devout Catholic - watching this movie and not coming away with a deeper understanding of their own viewpoint on religion. In this way, the film isn't really about Jesus at all, but instead about the search for truth for which all religions are ostensibly created, and, not coincidentally, all art is ostensibly made.

#53: Sanjuro

(Akira Kurosawa, 1962)

This sequel to Yojimbo is not the inarguable masterpiece that film was, but it's a great time nevertheless. The biggest hurdle to a sequel was the fact that we now know from the very beginning that Mifune's central samurai is not in it for the money, but is instead a good person. The solution is very smart: make the good guys and the bad guys clearly delineated, but make the good guys idiots that Mifune has to corral. Furthermore, the bad guys get a samurai of their own, a "tiger" in a world of cats, as Mifune says.

This all makes for a film that is extremely entertaining and satisfying, but it lacks that extra something that makes Yojimbo so great. A worthy sequel, though.

#52: Yojimbo

(Akira Kurosawa, 1961)

This is just one of those movies I'm embarrassed to have never seen, as it is obviously one of the more famous Kurosawa films. Remade (loosely) as A Fistful of Dollars, which in turn was remade (poorly) as Last Man Standing, Yojimbo is that perfect kind of movie about which there isn't much to say.

Mifune is awesome as the masterless Samurai, and the music is classic cool. Masaru Satu, who worked with Kurosawa on many of his movies, combined jazz and traditional Japanese motifs to come up with the perfect accompaniment to the film - weirdly enough, the score it reminded me of the most is Lalo Schiffrin's score from Bullitt, though unlike that masterpiece the score here does not surpass the film itself.

This is the first of many Kurosawa films I have to watch, plus I'll be watching Seven Samurai again, since I haven't seen it in so long. If this is any indication, I'm really looking forward to the assignment.

#73: Cléo from 5 to 7

(Agnès Varda, 1962)

One of the premier films of the French New Wave, Cléo de 5 à 7 is one of the more effective "real time" films I've ever seen. The film begins with Cléo, an up and coming pop singer, having her tarot cards read. The cards are in color, but the film is in black and white. Cléo is told she is sick, and she becomes distraught. This, we learn, is why she had her cards read in the first place: she is waiting to her back about her cancer biopsy. The next hour and a half consists of Cléo wandering through Paris, encountering co-workers, friends, lovers, and strangers along the way.
The real-time structure of the film allows the movie to wind its way through Paris with Cléo as she takes taxis and buses to her destinations. The nitpick here is obvious: if the film is in real time and only lasts 90 minutes, why isn't it called Cléo from 5 to 6:30? But beyond that the gimmick is extremely successful.

The real appeal of the film lies in the subtle yet highly stylized technique of Varda, who had never made a feature-length film before (note: where'd I get that?). The camera prowls around Cléo as if she were prey, particularly in the brilliant hat shopping scene. When Cléo first encounters people she knows, we hear their thoughts about her in order to establish their relationship. And in the most moving and effortlessly surreal scene, Cléo begins singing a song her songwriters have written for her. Her voice is accompanied by piano only, but as the song gets more intense, the camera pulls in until their is no one else in the room and the music swells into something else, from another place, and Cléo is alone with the song until she collapses from the emotion of it all and is snapped back into reality. It's a show-stopping scene that makes the film worth viewing just for that one brief moment.

#54: For All Mankind

(Al Reinert, 1989)

A Ken Burns documentary this is not. After searching through countless reels of film shot during the Apollo missions, Al Reinert  composed this artful, trance-inducing, awe-inspiring tone piece on man's first and only journeys to the moon. Accompanied by unidentified dialog from the nameless men in the air and on the ground, the Brian Eno-composed score washes over you as some of the most startling and beautiful images NASA produced during its trip to the moon are presented without contemporary talking heads or fictionalized drama to get in the way.

The film will be inherently dull to most viewers, since there's no plot, little dialog, and only the barest of narrative momentum. But taken as the kind of movie it is meant to be, For All Mankind is extremely successful, one of the most innovative and daring documentaries I've ever seen. This is a film that is entirely focused on the spectacle of human achievement, nothing more, nothing less. Its confidence is stunning, even if it pales in comparison to the moment in history it so artfully presents.