MY TOP 50 BALLARDIAN FEATURE FILMS Why? Because, as well as possessing a multitude of other qualities, J.G. Ballard was one of the most visual writers who ever lived, permanently implanting delirious, shimmering, exotic, disturbing, hallucinatory images into ones mind as powerfully as any equivalent in cinema. We also know that Ballard was an aficionado of cinema and respected it as an artform as much as he did painting or literature. And rightly so. In a sense, this is my cinematic homage to him, masquerading as a fun list. This list contains fictional films from whichever genre or type of film, from the silents onwards, made for a general cinema audience - not experimental art-gallery/installation video-works, or TV documentaries/dramas, as these are a whole other ball-game, too vast to go into here. They are not direct adaptations of Ballards work but have somehow reflected or evoked aspects of his ideas and novels, in terms of their aesthetics, style, themes and subtext, within their story-narratives. In other words they essay Ballardian sensibilities in general, or in particular signature scenes (for example I have included The Omega Man because of the brilliant opening scenes set in a desolate, sprawling city, redolent of one of Ballards abiding motifs, seen in Hello America or countless other stories). Some of these films contain just one or two Ballardian traits, others a combination of them, and they can be displayed through metaphor, ambiance and elliptical symbolism via the mise en scene, or purely through the ostensible subject matter and story. So Stalker reveals more of the former, Deathrace 2000 more of the latter; they are both important in their own ways, in relation to Ballard. Of course, the web of influences on a film such as Stalker gets complex here, as it was based on the 1974 SF novel Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, who were contemporaries of Ballard. The same goes for Apocalypse Now, which is based on Heart of Darkness, the novelette by Joseph Conrad, who in turn was a huge influence on Ballard - a lot of the creative fuel in any such artwork eventually comes full circle. However, regardless of any competing elements, my criteria allows all of these to be Ballardian films, in one way or another. We know that Ballard was partly influenced by the Existential themes of Film Noir and similar action based, American genres, but I wont include any of those as there are far too many classics to choose from. I am not trying to make any great claims here, just that all of these films somehow coincide with, or echo, Ballards concept of inner Space, whether it be through conscious, or unconscious, volition on the part of the film-makers. For whatever reason, some films will have a deeper connection to Ballards oeuvre than others, but all of them can be interpreted, within a wider artistic-cultural context, as supplementary to Ballardian ideas or themes. Of course, anyone can pinpoint thematic, contemporaneous similarities between various artists, especially from recent eras in our increasingly globalised, instantly communicable world. And Ballard is no exception when it comes to the convulsive, simultaneous, cross-fertilisation of artistic expression within wider culture, during his own lifetime. But hey....I like making lists and want to see if a qualitative list of films can be retrospectively deemed Ballardian, at all. Some of these films may seem like odd bedfellows, but I think they all have varying degrees of relevance to Ballards most potent concepts and themes. For example, Weekend is here because of its dystopic, psychopathological symbolism, which Jean-Luc Godard catapults at the viewer through the slingshot of stunning, phantasmagorical set-pieces, just as Ballard did in his writing. Jack Arnolds The Incredible Shrinking Man isnt as obviously philosophically deep, being ostensibly a B-movie vehicle. But it nevertheless contains various fascinating subtexts - as opposed to a more blatantly serious Arthouse film which wears its overtones on its sleeve. The portrayal of the Shrinking Mans desperate at-odds-with-nature survival tactics, culminating in the tragic, yet beautifully poetic climax, when he finally surrenders to Sublime Surreality, is about as close as you could get - pictorially - to the inwardly ecstatic, disturbed, yet outwardly calm, Existential epiphanies experienced by many of Ballards characters throughout their bizarre, mystically tinged journeys. Of course, many of the earlier produced films in this list will very likely have inspired Ballard, and the later ones will have been inspired by him, in turn. I also havent listed films that I know Ballard greatly admired, like Sunset Boulevard or Un Chien Andalou, for instance, as this seems a redundant exercise (without looking them up, I can remember only a few of his favourites, anyway). Regardless of such potentially corrupting factors I have tried to be as objective as possible in my selections, within the remit I have set myself. I have omitted a few Ballardian type films like Lord of the Flies or A Clockwork Orange simply because they are, in general, straight adaptations of novels by contemporaries of Ballard and to include them would seem perverse, in the sense that I could have just as easily mentioned the famous novels instead. I also have tried to add in a few lesser known titles that seem Ballardian, to keep the list fresh. I have decided to list just one film from each director mentioned, i.e. I have mentioned Polanskis Cul de Sac but not his Repulsion or The Tenant, so as not to double up - we all know that Polanskis early films were Ballardian in many ways, so the strongest or least obvious example will suffice. After briefly looking over my finished list, it is apparent that many of the greatest ever film directors are represented here. This is through no conscious plan of mine. However, it should be no surprise that some of the best directors display Ballardian talents, as they would be delving into, and utilising, their own Freudian/Surrealist, universal artistic wellsprings, as did Ballard. I also notice that the majority of films were made, or released, in the 1960s and 70s. I may not be as up to date with the higher strata of film-making these days as I like to think I am, but I reckon this statistic is synonymous with my artistic zeitgeist point, above. Also note that all of these are just off the top of my head; thought about, minimally researched and written out, all in one evening. If I had spent more time researching and developing this idea, Im sure I could have found more candidates and increased the list to 100, as I had to leave quite a few gems out as it is - but I look forward to any further suggestions. I started this as an impulsive, 10 minute, casual list, but I ended up spending quite a lot of (albeit very pleasurable) hours on it, basically writing a mini-article to go alongside the list, too, so I hope I get a few comments back, at the very least. My thanks, in advance! Do you agree with any films in this selection, or not? And if not, why? Are there any essential Ballardian films Ive left out? (though whether you agree or not, all of these wonderful films are worth seeing, anyway!) I may take the time to further think through each film and put them in ascending order, later, but for now they are in no particular order. English titles only : 1) Home (Ursula Meier, 2008) 2) Themroc (Claude Faraldo, 1973) 3) The Last Battle (Luc Besson, 1983) 4) Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) 5) Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966) 6) Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979) 7) Cul de Sac (Roman Polanski, 1966) 8) The Exterminating Angel (Luis Bunuel, 1962) 9) The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963) 10) London (Patrick Keiller, 1994) 11) Aguirre, The Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972) 12) Dredd (Peter Travis, 2012) 13) The Cement Garden (Andrew Birkin, 1993) 14) Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973) 15) Deathrace 2000 (Paul Bartel, 1975) 16) Punishment Park (Peter Watkins, 1971) 17) Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986) 18) Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967) 19) Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) 20) The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953) 21) Images (Robert Altman, 1972) 22) A Field in England (Ben Wheatley, 2012) 23) Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985) 24) Vampyr (Carl Dreyer, 1932) 25) Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa, 1975) 26) Radio On (Christopher Petit, 1979) 27) The Incredible Shrinking Man (Jack Arnold, 1957) 28) After Hours (Martin Scorsese, 1984) 29) Mad Max 1 & 2 (counted as one, as they are relatively indistinct from one another and essentially contiguous) 30) Duel (Steven Spielberg, 1971) 31) Dr. Srangelove...(Stanley Kubrick, 1964) 32) The Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964) 33) Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983) 34) Performance (Donald Cammell/Nicolas Roeg, 1970) 35) Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971) 36) The Terminal Man (Mike Hodges, 1974) 37) Phase IV (Saul Bass, 1974) 38) Theorem (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1968) 39) Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966) 40) The Cars That Ate Paris (Peter Weir, 1974) 41) The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973) 42) Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974) 43) The Swimmer (Frank Perry, Sydney Pollack, 1968) 44) The Omega Man (Boris Sagal 1971) 45) Blind Beast (Yasuzô Masumura, 1969) 46) Idaho Transfer (Peter Fonda, 1973) 47) The Quiet Earth (Geoff Murphy, 1985) 48) 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963) 49) A Zed and Two Noughts (Peter Greenaway, 1986) 50) Possession (Andzrej Zulawski, 1981)
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 08:55:29 +0000
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