Paul Duane

Comments

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

The greatest portrayal of toxic masculinity in modern cinema, utterly without hope. Only a destroyed romantic could create such nihilism.

Hard to Be a God

(see next comment which covers two films)

Mad Max: Fury Road

Two epic films made by directors in their seventies, two herculean feats of imagination, determination and unstoppable courage, two of the most purely cinematic films ever made.

CURE

Maybe the most frightening thing I’ve ever seen.

Only Angels Have Wings

There's no such thing as a perfect film, but for me, this is a perfect film.

Suspiria

I can watch this repeatedly, endlessly, despite knowing everything that’s going to happen, and it’s always an extraordinary experience, a waking terror-dreamscape of vivid horrors.

Aguirre, Wrath of God

(see following comment)

King Kong

Two films about iconic, oversized monsters, made by men who were/are adventurers as much as they were/are filmmakers. Cinema is rooted in these kinds of adventures and these kinds of adventurers.

Helpmates

Laurel and Hardy are the purest creatures ever captured on film, and they will live forever.

Mikey and Nicky

A film whose greatness and terrible, vertiginous tragedy grows with each viewing. Elaine May has made only four films. That to me is an indictment of modern American cinema.

Further remarks

Only choosing one Howard Hawks film here is something that I will grieve over in the long winter evenings.

I almost substituted Rio Bravo for my initial choice but I can't tear myself away from a deep and abiding love for the fliers of Barranca, and their constant quixotic attempts to escape gravity.

I feel like my love of 'scum cinema' has gone unrepresented here and I very nearly added Last House on Dead End Street, one of the most astonishingly scuzzy and depraved films ever made, but if doing so meant losing Laurel & Hardy, or King Kong, I couldn't do it. So I didn't.