Table Of ContentBY THE SAME AUTHOR
Nicole Kidman
The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film
In Nevada: The Land, the People, God, and Chance
The Alien Quartet
Beneath Mulholland: Thoughts on Hollywood and Its Ghosts
Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles
4–2
Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick
Silver Light
Warren Beatty and Desert Eyes
Suspects
Overexposures
Scott’s Men
America in the Dark
A Biographical Dictionary of Film
Wild Excursions: The Life and Fictions of Laurence Sterne
Hungry as Hunters
A Bowl of Eggs
Movie Man
“Have You Seen…?”
A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films
DAVID THOMSON
ALLEN LANE
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS
ALLEN LANE
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375
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www.penguin.com
First published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New
York, 2008
First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane, 2008
2
Copyright © David Thomson, 2008
The moral right of the author has been asserted All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written
permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book A CIP catalogue
record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-14-192658-2
For Laura Morris
Build your film on white, on silence, and on stillness.
—Robert Bresson
… the frenzy on the wall…
—Jean-Paul Sartre
Acknowledgments
I was first approached to try this book by Nigel Wilcockson of Penguin in
London. It was a prolonged process. After The Biographical Dictionary of
Film, I did not believe it was a sane idea to write another very long book
on the same subject. But Nigel was not to be told no and saw little
evidence that I was sane. He talked to me. He sent me superb books on
the churches of England as inspiration. He never stopped until he had
persuaded me to say yes. Then he left Penguin, and for all I know he is
now leading other authors astray for other houses. The one thing Nigel
omitted to say in his campaign—that I would enjoy doing the book—
came through with such surprise that I knew I must always thank him
first. His role at Penguin, as my editor, was then filled by Simon Winder,
who proved to be a dedicated friend, a patient and invaluable editor,
and a tower of strength, even though I declined illustrations and a rating
system.
In America, the book was taken up by Knopf, who had published me
often before: thus, I fell into the hands of a proven team—Bob Gottlieb
as editor, Katherine Hourigan as managing editor, Kevin Bourke as
production editing maestro, Kathy Zuckerman as publicity director, and
Carol Carson, who designed the jacket. These people are some of the
best friends I have had, in or out of publishing. If I mark Bob Gottlieb
down as captain of the team, it is only fair. Bob is a book man, and a
very good writer (though he only found that out, I think, after he had
stopped commissioning and editing so many books). There’s a lot that
we don’t agree on, but there is no one with whom sporting
disagreements can be so thoroughly enjoyed and explored. I have been
lucky enough to be there in need at a time in his life when his passion
moved toward film. He is a great editor—and all he does is read you,
think about it, argue, and guide you into being a little better.
Beyond the publishing assistance, I rely on a group of friends and
family with whom I see or discuss films. Again, we do not agree all the
time. But we have seen that as the point. I have benefited from remarks,
recommendations, and insights, and helpless cries of pain and ecstasy
from so many people. But these are the ones I can remember now: Mark
Feeney; Tom Luddy; Edith Kramer; Pierre Rissient; Jean-Pierre Gorin;
Scott Foundas; Richard and Mary Corliss; Andrew Sarris and Molly
Haskell; Richard Schickel; Richard Roud; Richard Jameson and Kathleen
Murphy; Patrick McGilligan; Greil Marcus; Peter Bogdanovich; Mark
Cousins; Ty Burr; Michael Ondaatje; Anthony Lane, Quentin Curtis,
Gilbert Adair, and Jonathan Romney (all in their time fellow film critics
at the Independent on Sunday in London); Antonia Quirke; Jim Toback;
Paul Schrader; David Packard; Steven Bach; Jeffrey Selznick; Holly
Goldberg Sloan and Garry Rosen. Many of these people are all the more
remarkable for being interested in many things beside film. And that
leads me to the vital company in any filmgoer’s life—the other people in
the dark—Anne, Lucy, and five children (Kate, Mathew, Rachel,
Nicholas, and Zachary), most of whom know the problem of keeping me
awake at some films. It is the just reward for insomnia that I sleep most
easily at the movies. Why not? I always suspected they were dreams.
Introduction
I wanted a “bumper” book for your laps, a volume where you could keep
turning the pages and coming upon juxtapositions of the fanciful and the
fabulous (Abbott and Costello go to Zabriskie Point?) or some chance
alphabetical poetry that might make your scalp tingle—like Bad Day at
Black Rock leading into Badlands. I wanted old favorites to be neighbors
with films you’ve never heard of. I wanted you to entertain the unlikely
possibility that “everything” is here. Of course, it is not—everything
remains out in our scattered “there.”
Choosing their top ten is a game most film critics are accustomed to—
and one that allows depressives to ask, “Are there really ten worth
keeping?” (This is a healthy doubt, more useful than the routine thumbs
up on two or three fresh masterpieces every week.) Writing about a
select hundred is a regular form of bookmaking—the exercise of taste
makes a moderate-sized book and a harmless pantheon. But going for a
thousand is a gesture toward history—it seems to require that the
selector weighs the old against the new. It’s like wondering whether
Beowulf can talk to Lolita.
How is it that a thousand seems to omit so many more than a
whimsical ten? How can ten hundred escape being an outline of the
history of the medium and of our jumping tastes? If you’re picking ten,
you may not consider the silent era in Sweden. But if you’re doing a
thousand, then those Stillers and Sjöströms deserve reappraisal. And
they may be among the best early films we have.
Equally, it’s touching to find in Irene Mayer Selznick’s private letters
that, in 1927, the cool, inside crowd in Hollywood reckoned Sunrise was
the best film they’d ever seen—and surely the harbinger of great creative
changes. (The newly founded Academy actually created two types of
Best Picture—the Hollywood prize, for Wings, and an arty one for
Sunrise.) So it’s a surprise that in Brussels in 1958, a gang of historians
put Murnau’s The Last Laugh way ahead of his Sunrise. I can recall a time
when “film writing” took that estimate for granted. Yet now The Last
Laugh feels like an academic exercise—while Sunrise is different and
