Skip to main content

What if ...



Each year 25 films are added to the National Film Registry.  Most of them you've heard of like this year's selection Mary Poppins. long overdue.  Other headliners include Pulp Fiction and Roger & Me, which gave us two of Hollywood's favorite bad boys Quentin Tarantino and Michael Moore.  Some you are surprised aren't already in the registry like Gilda and The Quiet Man.  But one film you probably never heard of is the animated short film The Hole.

I watched it for the first time today and was mesmerized by the clever animation and the wonderful dialog between characters voiced by Dizzy Gillespie and George Matthews.  The film dates to 1962, highlighting not only Cold War fears but race relations as well, as we see a black and white construction worker having what seems to be an easy rapport between each other in a hole of a New York construction site.  The film is as apt today as it was then.

The Hole won an Oscar back in '62, which makes it surprising that it took so long to be recognized, but this project was only begun in 1989 so I guess they have a lot of catching up to do, especially if only inducting 25 films per year.  What makes the list compelling is that you can nominate films yourself.  You don't have to be an academy member or film critic.  Your choice has to be at least 10 years old and have cultural, historic or aesthetic value.  If you can't think of one off the top of your head, here is a long list of films the NFR considers worthy of suggestion.

Comments

  1. Brilliant! Thanks for the link.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great film! The Hubleys did others as well,

    http://www.pbs.org/itvs/independentspirits/faith.html

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!