THE FILMS OF OUR LIVES; 25 MORE TITLES GET THE NOD FOR NATIONAL REGISTRY.Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic In a year when any fool who can count on both hands seems to be releasing a Great Movies List, the 10-year-old National Film Registry's roster of 25 new inductees serves a few instructive purposes. First, unlike the American Film Institute's hype-heavy ``100 Years, 100 Movies,'' the list released Monday is hardly the result of a popularity contest. With entries such as the 1956 Puerto Rican Puer·to Ri·co Abbr. PR or P.R. A self-governing island commonwealth of the United States in the Caribbean Sea east of Hispaniola. feminist manifesto ``Modesta,'' the '64 ``Dead Birds'' documentary about a New Guinea New Guinea (gĭn`ē), island, c.342,000 sq mi (885,780 sq km), SW Pacific, N of Australia; the world's second largest island after Greenland. tribe and the self-explanatory, newsreel-based ``Tacoma Narrows Bridge Noun 1. Tacoma Narrows Bridge - a suspension bridge across Puget Sound at Tacoma Tacoma - a city in west central Washington on an arm of Puget Sound to the south of Seattle Collapse'' (1940), this batch - chosen by Librarian of Congress The Librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. Librarians of Congress
James Billington was sworn in as the Librarian of Congress on September 14, 1987. , with consultation from a board of film scholars, critics and professionals for inclusion in the library's permanently preserved collection - is no one's idea of a greatest hits package. Of course, most of the all-time favorites have already been included in the registry. But even though the full, now 250-title list is top heavy with films at absolutely no risk of being lost - they're too valuable for their copyright owners to neglect - it's always had room for the obscure, the unpopular and the otherwise overlooked significant work. As for the more recognizable movies on this year's list, a handful are long overdue masterpieces like James Whale's witty 1935 ``The Bride of Frankenstein,'' Joseph H. Lewis' sleazy, energetic '49 noir ``Gun Crazy'' and Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 retro elegy elegy, in Greek and Roman poetry, a poem written in elegiac verse (i.e., couplets consisting of a hexameter line followed by a pentameter line). The form dates back to 7th cent. B.C. in Greece and poets such as Archilochus, Mimnermus, and Tytraeus. for elusive innocence, ``The Last Picture Show.'' But most of the Hollywood titles included this year - ``Easy Rider,'' ``Little Miss Marker,'' ``The Ox-Bow Incident,'' ``Tootsie toot·sie n. Slang 1. Toots. 2. A girl or young woman. 3. or toot·sy A person's foot. [Origin unknown. ,'' ``Twelve O'Clock High'' - are decidedly second tier, artistically speaking. There's a lot of formally influential stuff like the first Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse Famous character of Walt Disney's animated cartoons. He was introduced in Steamboat Willie (1928), the first animated cartoon with sound. Mickey was created by Disney, who also provided his high-pitched voice, and was usually drawn by the studio's head animator, sound cartoon, ``Steamboat steamboat: see steamship. steamboat or steamship Watercraft propelled by steam; more narrowly, a shallow-draft paddle-wheel steamboat widely used on rivers in the 19th century, particularly the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Willie'' (1928), and the 1925 ``Lost World,'' which was the first big, special effects-laden dinosaur movie. But the overriding notion the '98 list projects is the sense that the candidate pool is getting pretty shallow. While this means that a wider spectrum of worthy movies are being considered, it also indicates that the practice of reducing great cinema to items on a list can only go so far. Let's hope the AFI AFI American Film Institute AFI Awaiting Further Instructions AFI Armed Forces Insurance AFI A Fire Inside (band) AFI Air Force Instruction AFI Australian Film Institute AFI Agencia Federal de Investigación , and all the other organizations that think art can be ranked, appreciate that lesson. A diversity of entries 1. ``The Bride of Frankenstein'' (Universal, 1935); directed by James Whale. 2. ``The City'' (American Documentary Films Inc., 1939); directed by Willard Van Dyke Van Dyke (or van/Van Dijk or Dyk etc) is a surname of Dutch origin. It refers to:
3. ``Dead Birds'' (Peabody Museum, 1964); directed by Robert Gardner. 4. ``Don't Look Back'' (Leacock-Pennebaker Inc., 1967); cinematography cinematography: see motion picture photography. cinematography Art and technology of motion-picture photography. It involves the composition of a scene, lighting of the set and actors, choice of cameras, camera angle, and integration of special by D.A. Pennebaker, Jones Alk and Howard Alk. 5. ``Easy Rider'' (Raybert Productions-Pando Co./Columbia, 1969); directed by Dennis Hopper. 6. ``42nd Street'' (Warner Bros BROS Brothers BROS Benefits and Retirement Operations Section (King County, Washington) BROS Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society (London, UK) ., 1933); directed by Lloyd Bacon. 7. ``From the Manger to the Cross'' (Kalem, 1912); directed by Sidney Olcott. 8. ``Gun Crazy'' (a k a ``Deadly Is the Female'') (United Artists, 1949); directed by Joseph H. Lewis. 9. ``The Hitch-Hiker'' (Filmmakers/RKO, 1953); directed by Ida Lupino. 10. ``The Immigrant'' (Mutual, 1917); directed by Charles Chaplin. 11. ``The Last Picture Show'' (BBS/Columbia, 1971); directed by Peter Bogdanovich. 12. ``Little Miss Marker'' (Paramount, 1934); directed by Alexander Hall. 13. ``The Lost World'' (First National, 1925); directed by Harry O. Hoyt. 14. ``Modesta'' (Film Unit of the Division of Community Education, Puerto Rico, 1956); directed by Benji Doniger. 15. ``The Ox-Bow Incident'' (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1943); directed by William Wellman. 16. ``Pass the Gravy'' (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1928); directed by Fred L. Guiol. 17. ``The Phantom of the Opera'' (Universal, 1925); directed by Rupert Julian. 18. ``Powers of Ten'' (Charles and Ray Eames, 1978); directed by Charles and Ray Eames. 19. ``The Public Enemy'' (Warner Bros., 1931); directed by William Wellman. 20. ``Sky High'' (Fox Film Corp., 1922); directed by Lynn Reynolds. 21. ``Steamboat Willie'' (Walt Disney, 1928); directed by Walt Disney. 22. ``Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse'' (Barney Elliot & The Camera Shop in Tacoma, 1940); cinematography by Barney Elliot and co-workers at the Camera Shop in Tacoma, Wash.. 23. ``Tootsie'' (Columbia, 1982); directed by Sydney Pollack. 24. ``Twelve O'Clock High'' (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1949); directed by Henry King. 25. ``Westinghouse Works 1904'' (American Mutoscope & Biograph Co., 1904); cinematography by G.W. Bitzer. CAPTION(S): Photo, Box Photo: James Whale's ``The Bride of Frankenstein'' will join the National Film Registry's roster. Box: A diversity of entries (See Text) |
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