35: The Best Films of the 90s
Gareth Higgins on THE BEST FILMS OF THE 90s
In anticipation of the decennial Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films ever made, due later this year, Indiewire has published what its writers believe to be the greatest films of the ‘90s. I like such lists - at the very least they can allow works to be discovered by a new audience or rediscovered by an old one. And when they’re most thoughtfully prepared, by people who have a range of knowledge and tastes that takes the diversity of global cinema seriously, taking life seriously, and not taking ourselves too seriously, they help us dream the world through the eyes of the other.
I’ve already witnessed at least two sets of eyebrows raise at Indiewire’s choice of Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 Eyes Wide Shutas the best film of its decade, but I think a case can be made. It’s certainly one of the most ambitious attempts at getting inside the jealousy and possessiveness that characterize marriages among people who have not been initiated into authentic adulthood; the fact that the externals in the movie often don’t feel “realistic” is a function of the fact that most of Eyes Wide Shut is a dream - its source text is literally called Traumnovelle (“Dream Story”). And its control of language and image continue to astound, not to mention how its use of two of the world’s biggest stars (Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman) exposing their vulnerability to the rest of us is an inversion of the power relations we’ve come to expect from the military-industrial-entertainment-gossip-confession complex. It’s a drama about desire, fantasy, and the possibility of being truly honest with ourselves and others; and when one of my favorite film-interpreters, Jett Loe, says he considers it a film of novelistic depth, I’m inclined to agree.
I scanned my own spreadsheet of movies watched - and yes, I do keep such a spreadsheet - to decide which films from the ‘90s might make my own list, offered in the service of sharing some of the wonders that have illuminated my path, hoping they might do for yours too.
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