My top 10 Hollywood films of all time!

Every self-respecting magazine, film critic and cinema aficionado makes a list of the 10 best films of all time. Here I am attempting my own list based on movies that I have loved and adored over the years. Here's presenting ten of my favourites in no particular order:

1. Sound of Music (1965) 

As an eight year old, this was one of the first English movies I sat and watched till the very end. The heart-rendering tale of the effervescent governess bringing joy and happiness into a strict and rigid household winning the hearts of the children she tends to and their rather stoic father is a classic. Julie Andrews personified innocence and congeniality. Adapted by Robert Wise from a Broadway musical, The Sound of Music is one of the highest grossing films of all time. Who can forget 'How do you solve a problem like Maria?', the beautifully picturised 'I am sixteen going on seventeen', the extremely hummable ' These are a few of my favourite things' or the eponymous 'Do-re-mi'.

The credit for these evergreen songs lies with Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. But the soul of this film was Julie Andrews and her impish charm.

2. Gone with the Wind (1939)

The poster says 'The most magnificent picture ever!'. I wholeheartedly agree. The movie was poetry in motion with some of the most beautiful camerawork I have ever seen. The fierce sunsets, the long shots and the tight close-ups held everyone spellbound despite its long running time of 3 hours and 44 minutes. The movie stands for resilience and facing adversity and also the realisation of what love means. Vivien Leigh's portrayal of Scarlett O'Hara is her most remembered role till date. Clark Gable as Rhett Butler created the concept of a heart throb. Women still swoon at the sight of the majestic Rhett with his cocky manner and the twinkle in his eyes. What makes this movie stand apart is the slight friction between the lead characters and Scarlett's late realisation of love lost. It was one of the first major films to be shot in Technicolor and deservedly won the Oscar for 'Best Cinematography'.

Some say that Orson Welles' 'Citizen Kane' is the best movie ever. My answer to that, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn".

3. Rear Window (1954)

Move over Psycho, this one has got to be Hitchcock's best. A broken leg forces a photographer to spend the entire day in his stuffy apartment. To pass his time, he sits by the window which faces the opposite building where most people leave their windows open too. This affords him a voyeuristic insight into their daily lives and he soon becomes convinced that one of them is a murderer. In the genre of suspense, nobody can hold a candle to Hitchcock. Like most of his films, Rear Window was complemented with impeccable cinematography, a gripping screenplay and extremely effective ambient sound.James Stewart and Grace Kelly played their parts to perfection helping us, the audience, identify with the distraught photographer who can't be sure what to make of what he saw and his wife who is forever questioning his morbid curiosity The movie makes the viewer as much a voyeur as Stewart's character.

4. The Pianist (2002)

I can watch The Pianist again and again and again. Adrien Brody gave a performance par excellence. The amount of soul he put into the film is what makes it one of my favourites. It is no wonder that the actor won the Oscar for his role making him the youngest recipient ever at the age of 29. Not only did Brody withdraw himself in preparation for the role, he learnt how to play Chopin on the piano and lost about 13 kgs to look the part of Władysław Szpilman. The movie is based on the hardships Szpilman had to face while trying to evade arrest by the Nazis. The extreme despondence and melancholy he portrays with his bony frame and hollow eyes makes you tear your heart out. The scene where his hideout is discovered when he accidently drops a plate makes you cringe. You hold your breath when he lays down amongst the dead on the street pretending to be dead as soldiers walk menacingly close by. You feel his forlornness and anguish when he desperately searches for something to eat in the demolished trunk of a house. I salute both Roman Polanski for extracting such an exacting performance and to Adrien Brody for putting so much heart and commitment into a role. This one will make you cry as much as reading Anne Frank's diary.

5. The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

Many would display surprise to see this one on the list. I'm assuming they haven't seen the movie or reveled in its excellence. This movie comes from Stephen Hopkins who has also given us the Predator series. I'm a sucker for retelling of true stories. Nothing induces more horror than the fact that it has happened to someone. Those ignorant of the chilling history of Tsavo would perhaps inadvertently assume that the movie deals with the supernatural and spirits. While there is a sense of the supernatural in the film, it has nothing to do with spirits. In fact, it has something to do with two terrifying flesh and blood lions. Lions that terrorized a camp of workers involved in building a railroad bridge across the Tsavo river. These maneaters attacked without premise or logic leaving many dead in their wake. The film traces the delicate relationship that British Engineer John Patterson (Val Kilmer) shares with Samuel, one of the project's supervisors and madcap hunter Charles Remington played by Michael Douglas. It is a battle of wit that the lions play with Patterson before they are killed.

Africa is painted in broad and beautiful brushstrokes by cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. My favourite scene has to be when Patterson faces one of the lions and presses the trigger of his rifle only to realise that it is not loaded. The skin of the two real maneaters is now on display at the Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The film ends by telling you where the skins are displayed and that even today "if you lock eyes with them, you will be afraid".

6. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

When you think of iconic style, the chances are that you are visualizing the pearls clad slender neck of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. This is the original romcom, to which no amount of Ashton Kutcher or Katherine Heigl movies can be compared. Hepburn as the ravishing beauty Holly Golightly won many hearts and epitomised beauty and grace. The transformation of the small town girl into a Manhattan socialite and that too one with not the most honourable of intentions carved a special place in our hearts. But more than that, what has lent the film iconic status over the years have been the Little Black Dress (A Givenchy original mind you), the ubiquitous strings of pearls and the oversized cigarette holder.

7. Titanic (1997)

James Cameron's Titanic was the highest grossing film of all time until the title was usurped by another one of James Cameron's movies - Avatar. However, I still consider Titanic his best work. I clearly remember the copious amount of tears all the women in the theatre shed as the near frozen Leonardo Dicaprio as Jack Dawson held on to the love of his life in the aftermath of the sinking of the behemoth. Over the years as I read more about the unfrotunate fate of the Titanic, I began appreciating the attention to detail that Cameron had given while making his movie. From replicating the interiors to establishing the era through clothes and mannerisms, it was beautifully presented. Cameron showed the calamity through the eyes of the star-crossed lovers Jack and Rose and left an impression on the audiences of the personal tragedy of disasters.

8. Schindler's List (1993)

It would be an abomination to not put this movie on my list. My fascination for the holocaust has always led me to literature that chronicled it. I devoured 'Schindler's Ark' only to find that the movie based on the novel had been the recipient of seven Academy awards. I usually don't approve of movies based on books (although I must admit most of the movies on my list are adaptations of books), but this one had to be made. And who better than Steven Spielberg to make it. He has more than done justice to the book. While the book does leave you moved, by putting faces to Oskar Schindler and Amon Goth Spielberg makes the story all the more real.

The movie deals with German businessman Oskar Schindler who saved 1000 Jewish workers of his factory from being sent to concentration camp. He actually spent most of his fortune in bribing Nazi officials to keep his workers alive and formed the Schindler family. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes gave stellar performances and effortlessly brought out the good and evil during the holocaust respectively. For me the scene that stood out was during the end, when leaving the factory after the war as he has been a Nazi party member and a profiteer of slave labour, he wistfully says that he wished he could have done more to save more lives.

9. The Shining (1980)

Stephen King has that uncanny ability to spin tales that can be adapted into brilliant cinematic masterprieces. Misery, Green Mile and The Shining are few of the examples of this fact. This particular movie is perhaps the greatest horror films of all time. The story of a writer played by Jack Nicholson who along with his family moves into the Overlook Hotel as a winter caretaker. His son Danny who has ESP prophesizes a grim picture if they continue living in the hotel. Jack begins encountering ghosts and slowly but surely begins losing his sanity which reaches a climax as he tries to kill his own wife and son in the eerie deserted hotel. One of cinema's most horrifying scenes comes from this movie when Jack chops through th bathroom door using an axe where his wife is hiding, sticks his head in and menacingly announces, "Here's Johnny".

I consider this movie as one of the enduring reminders of Stanley Kubrick's genius. A true spine chiller, this one.

10. K-19: The widowmaker (2002)

Produced by National Geographic, this movie was directed by Kathryn Bigelow who went on to win the Oscar for Best Director for Hurt Locker. She is also the ex-wife of award winning director James Cameron.

While having a plethora of war movies to choose from, I would choose this one as it affected me the most even though it isn't really a war movie. The plight of men exposed to radiation hundreds of feet under water with an unrelenting captain played by Harrison Ford is as heart-wrenching a drama as it can get.

Although the movie didn't do too well at the box office, I consider it an exemplary product of storytelling and film making.

Sources for the Movie posters:

http://www.movieposter.com/poster/b70-11237/Sound_Of_Music.html
http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_poster/gone_with_the_wind_1939.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rearwindowposter.jpg
http://shaved-cat.tumblr.com
http://www.impawards.com/1996/ghost_and_the_darkness_ver2.html
http://www.movieposter.com/poster/MPW-13067/Breakfast_At_Tiffany_s.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Titanic_poster.jpg
http://www.mposter.com/schindlers-list-movie-poster.html
http://exha-le.blogspot.in/2012_01_01_archive.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:K_nineteen_the_widowmaker_ver2.jpg


PS: Not surprisingly a majority of the movies draw inspiration from real-life events. Afterall, truth is stranger than fiction!

The genius of Peter Paul Rubens and the Flemish Baroque school of Art

What makes the Flemish Baroque school of painting so spectacular is the attention to detail and the brilliant lighting in each of the paintings. This school of art existed far before impressionism took the art world by storm and was more loyal to real proportions and contrasts. In fact, Van Gogh's much celebrated 'Vase with Twelve Flowers' wasn't the first example of floral still art. Jan Brueghel the Elder, an artist from the Flemish Baroque era perfected the technique of painting vases of flowers much before others. Yet, one doesn't find too much mention of him in popular culture.

Van Gogh's Vase with twelve sunflowers, 1888

Brueghel the elder's Flower Still Life, 1603

Brueghel the elder, whose father and son were also noted Flemish painters, had established the association of his family name with floral art. But my favourite Flemish Baroque artist has to be Ruben. There is just something about the flow of his hand, the beauty of his subjects and the captured movement in his paintings. He was praised for his lavish portraits of nobility and was even knighted by both the King of Spain and Charles I. 

His most popular works include The massacre of the Innocents,1611;  Venus at the Mirror, 1615; Tiger and Lion Hunt, 1618 and The fall of Man, 1629.

My favourites among his work are  Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Lerma, 1603 which was painted during his first trip to Spain and Prometheus Bound, 1611.

Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Lerma, 1603

Prometheus Bound, 1611

Ruben had himself acknowledged that Prometheus Bound was one of his most important works. He collaborated with several other artists to create this masterpiece. In fact the eagle which would eat mythical Prometheus' liver every day as part of his punishment for stealing fire from the gods has been painted by Frans Snyders.

My fascination with these paintings lies in the clever detailing, portrayal of sinew and beautiful use of light.

Sources: http://oilpaintingbank.com/van-gogh-flower-oil-paintings/32110-Van-Gogh-flower-oil-paintings-76.html

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/32357038@N08/3372918249/

 http://www.famous-painters.org/Peter-Paul-Rubens/The-Equestrian-Portrait-of-the-Duke-of-Lerma.shtm

 http://awp.diaart.org/kos/images/rubensprom.html

 http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/104468.html

The first post!

This is my first post. Although not my first blog. I already have a travel and photography blog (http://www.travelyarn.blogspot.com/) and thought its time I had a scrapbook where I could post things that inspired me - things from the world of photography, fashion, food, books, music, architecture, interiors and just about anything else.

These two photos are from Zara's TRF Winter 2011 collection. I am particularly partial to the brand for its ability to produce seemingly ordinary clothes that completely transform the person wearing them into tres chique. A Spanish brand, Zara began in 1975 and has slowly made its presence known in the fashion world for reproducing low-cost designs inspired from the runway. Zara's marketing strategy would be called suicidal by some but it works perfectly for the brand. Instead on spending the big bucks on advertising or getting a celebrity brand ambassador, they instead believe in opening new stores and getting newer fashions into their stores as often as possible. I'm pretty sure this strategy was the brainchild of a woman because it works!

In India too, they opened their first stores in New Delhi and Mumbai and have in the last few months expanded to Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad. In India, Zara's famous leopard prints, sexy pumps, lacy tops and formal wear has caught the imagination of the young woman. It's not surprising, for instance, to enter Mumbai's Palladium Mall and find every 7 out of 10 women carrying  Zara paper bags (and not just on sale days).

I'm a regular at the Zara store as well as their website. The unpretentious photography for their look-books interests me. These two photos caught my fancy because of the styling, the lighting and because of the way the models avoid eye contact with the camera. Shooting against a black background always produces striking results. As can be seen here. I'm not particularly fond of stark white backgrounds with models that stare dumbfounded into a camera like deer caught in a car's headlights. This works for me. Of course, anything and everything about Zara works for me. ;)

Photo sources: 

http://www.zara.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/category/in/en/zara-W2011-s/153002/#{%22lookDetail%22:3}

http://www.zara.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/category/in/en/zara-W2011-s/153002/#{%22lookDetail%22:5}