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Back in October I wrote this post about the couple of lockdown months I’d spent watching classic films.

Well, in the year since I subscribed to the Criterion Channel I’ve watched many, many more of them, so I think it’s time for an update.

As the title of this post suggests, the first year of my Criterion fun, between August 2021 and August 2021, took in just over 600 films. A lot? maybe, but remember we were mostly in lockdown, so it was a good diversion when I was unable to go out for dinner, drinks, and, crucially, to the cinema. So I bought a big telly and a good sound system and turned my living room into my Odeon/Arclight.

I’d say about 90% of the films were feature length, with 10% being shorts. I finished maybe 85% of the films, and gave up on the other 15% before they finished. Not sure of an average length, but as older films were closer to the 90-minute mark, and many were over three hours, I’d guess at around two hours.

I did see other films during this time – as a dad I am compelled to watch Disney and Marvel movies – and although I enjoyed many of them, and think they are good (in their own special way), I only included them if they were good good, by which I mean they had to have the kind of artistic merit that would allow them to seem at home on this list (examples include Pixar’s excellent Soul, and Mad Max: Fury Road).

I also found a few kindred spirits, some who were going through the same process as me and a few who had already been on a similar journey. It was fascinating to chat through some of these classics with those people, and discovering the depths of others’ movie fandom was always a real kick. I recently went through the production process of a commercial with directors whose references were movies like Playtime, and I was delighted to be able to understand them and discuss their nuances. It’s great to expand an artistic frame of reference, then use that expansion beyond just a nichey nerdiness.

If anyone wants to discuss the relative merits of Ozu vs Mizoguchi vs Kurosawa (and, at a push, Kobayashi, although he’s a little on the nose), hit me up. I will happily chat Rohmer/Malle/Chabrol/Demy/etc., or Fellini/De Sica/ Passolini/Antonioni/Visconti tilll the cows come home.

Here are some of the films you might not have considered watching because they’re kind of ‘deep cut’, but I loved them:

The Music Room (Satyajit Ray). Is about a rich Indian man who has spent all his money and is now on the verge of poverty. However, he decides to have one last blowout on a concert in the music room of his house. It made Indian music surprisingly (to me) compelling, and took me into a world I’d never even considered, let alone visited.

The Wages Of Fear (Henri Clouzot) is one of the most entertaining films you’ll ever see. It concerns a group of roughnecks who have to drive trucks of nitroglycerine across the bumpy terrain of an unspecified country in South America. Great characters combine with endless tension to make a Palme D’Or winner that never lets up.

Viridiana (Luis Bunuel) is funny, dark, twisty, crazy. Of Bunuel’s work, Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is the best-known, but Viridiana is the bravest. He returned to Franco’s Spain after decades spent in exile in Mexico and made a shockingly irreverent film against the wishes of the religious authorities.

High And Low (Akira Kurosawa). Kurosawa kindly invented the action film (Seven Samurai), the medical procedural drama (Red Beard) and this film, the first police procedural. We begin by spending an hour in one very cool room, then the hunt is on…

Le Plaisir (Max Ophuls) is a kind of anthology, split into three. The great thing about Ophuls is his camera movement: although the lack of editing keeps you immersed in the story, at some point you realise you’ve been watching the same unbroken shot for ages, then you start to wonder where it began, rewind and marvel again. Have a look at the same technique in La Ronde and The Earrings of Madame de… In Le Plaisir you’ll see it to stunning effect in the first and third stories.

Closely Watched Trains (Jiří Menzel) is just so warm, charming and funny; full of delightful little touches, wonderfully observed moments and gorgeous photography. Yes, it’s a Czechoslovak film about some people running a rural train station, but that only proves that greatness can come from anywhere, through any story.

Z (Costa Gavras) is one you might have heard of. It’s the thinly-fictionalised account of the death of a Greek politician, and it’s insanely gripping. It feels as if it lands between a documentary and a movie, but not in the same way as, say, The Battle Of Algiers. It’s more fun than that: a tense ride unlike anything you’ve seen before.

Army Of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville) was dismissed on its initial release for being sympathetic to de Gaulle, so it languished, forgotten and unknown for forty years until it was reappraised as one of the best films of 2006. There’s a lot of great Melville out there, but this is his masterpiece: a fascinating, compelling tale of a small band of French resistance fighters in World War Two.

Black Orpheus (Marcel Camus) is a vibrant reworking of the Orpheus and Euridice myth, transplanted to the favelas of Rio during Carnival, it has colour, music, energy, passion, joy, tragedy and pretty much everything else.

La Terra Trema (Luchino Visconti) isn’t usually mentioned in the Italian Neorealism conversation, but as far as I was concerned it might as well have been a documentary. It features no real actors and follows the lives of some working class fishermen in a small Italian port. It really transports you to that time and place, and gets you deeply involved with one man’s tragic attempt to break out of his circumstances.

Ashes And Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda) is set on the day the allies win World War Two, and is impossibly cool. The lead actor modeled his performance on James Dean, bringing an oddly American vibe to a very Polish story. Again, it takes you right into that time and place, wondering how communist Russia would take control of war-torn Poland.

I Vitelloni (Federico Fellini) is the film that most other people who have been on this kind of journey bring up to me as a favourite. It’s Fellini at his best, telling us a wonderful story of a bunch of layabout young men in a small seaside town. It’s a clear influence on Swingers, Goodfellas, and any other film with a bunch of guys having fun and taking no responsibility for themselves.

The Turin Horse (Bela Tarr) sounds like the dullest, most depressing film ever made, but it’s the exact opposite of those two things. Never will you find the sight of two people eating a potato so compelling. A man and his daughter live on a decaying, windswept Hungarian farm, then something happens to the well…

Au Revoir Les Enfants (Louis Malle) is the only film I saw that made me cry. I’m pretty sure I saw it when it came out, but I didn’t remember much about it. It’s one of several autobiographical films made by Louis Malle, which gives it an added poignancy. From Zero De Conduite and Les Quatre Cents Coups, to Les Murs and Etre Et Avoir, the French make such great films about childhood and school. This is one of the greatest.

The Servant (Joseph Losey) is an utterly English film, directed by an American. The plot is very unpredictable (although the makers of Parasite must have seen it a few times), as are the performances, but as it descends further and further into a rabbit hole of insanity, you’ll be dragged right along with it.

Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg) is among this year’s Oscar nominees. It’s a Danish black comedy that’s so wonderfully life-affirming (even though the director’s daughter died tragically at the beginning of filming), culminating in a giddy, delirious dance. I think the message was ‘drink more booze’; it certainly tempted me to do just that.

The Fireman’s Ball (Milos Forman) is another film made all the better for it’s use of non-professional actors. If you’ve ever wondered how and why Milos Forman was plucked from Czechoslovakia to direct One Flew Over The Cockoo’s Nest, watch this and all will become clear. It’s a sort of One Flew Over The Strange Little Community Get Together, hilarious, touching and beautifully observed.

Town Bloody Hall (Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker) is a documentary/filming of a debate on feminism in The New York Town Hall, featuring, among others, Germaine Greer and the provocatively sexist Norman Mailer. It’s shown in all it’s ugly, fiery energy, dumping you right in the centre of a full-throttle battle of the sexes.

The Kid With A Bike (Jean Pierre and Luc Dardennes) is a modern Belgian film with all the authenticity of Italian Neorealism at its best. The story of a young boy whose idolises his dad, who in turn would rather his son didn’t exist. It is played so realistically you feel as if you were given a front-row seat as all this happened for real. I’d also encourage you to seek out other Dardennes Brothers films, such as The Child, The Son and Lorna’s Silence, all similarly brilliant.

Il Sorpasso (Dino Risi) is a comedy, so it won’t be mentioned alongside all the serious dramas that tend to make up the lists of greatest-ever films. But this hilarious road movie, combining an uptight guy with a random ‘friend’ who doesn’t give a shit about anything, is as good as many more lauded Italian films of the 1960s, and has an ending you won’t see coming.

Le Trou (Jaques Becker) is the best prison break film of all time. It is almost entirely about five guys who tunnel out of jail, making more progress, night after night. It has all the tension, twists and great character acting (including some people involved in the real-life breakout it was based on) you need to make a film like this work perfectly.

But you want to know what they all were, don’t you? Relax, I’ve got you. Here’s the list, chronological from 15th Jan:

1. Man with a Movie Camera
2. Late Spring
3. Au Hasard Balthazar
4. L’Avventura
5. Le Mépris 
6. Ordet
7. Andrei Rublev
8. Stalker
9. The General
10. Metropolis
11. Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
12. Sátántangó
13. Pather Panchali
14. Gertrud
15. Pierrot le Fou
16. Close-Up
17. Ugetsu Monogatari
18. La Jetée
19. M
20. Sherlock Jr.
21. La maman et la putain
22. Sansho Dayu
23. Modern Times
24. Pickpocket
25. Sans Soleil
26. A Man Escaped
27. L’eclisse
28. Beau Travail
29. The Spirit of the Beehive
30. Fanny and Alexander
31. The Colour of Pomegranates
32. Greed
33. A Brighter Summer Day
34. Partie de campagne
35. Intolerance
36. Yi Yi
37. Touki Bouki 
38. Imitation of Life
39. Madame de…
40. The Conformist
41. Meshes of the Afternoon
42. Two or three things I know about her
43. Stalker
44. The Gospel According to St. Matthew
45. Come And See
46. Close-Up
47. The Passion of Joan of Arc
48. Playtime
49. Viridiana
50. Hour of the Wolf
51. Vivre Sa Vie
52. Husbands
53. Los Olvidados
54. Opening Night
55. The Gold Rush
56. Zero de Conduite
57. L’argent (1983)
58. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
59. Mouchette
60. The River
61. Meet Me in St Louis
62. Memories of Underdevelopment
63. Vampyr
64. Nosferatu
65. Chung King Express
66. The Music Room
67. The Story of Apu
68. Chimes at Midnight
69. Alexander Nevsky
70. Daisies
71. Closely Watched Trains
72. The Great Dictator
73. Madame Verdoux
74. A Woman Under The Influence
75. Husbands
76. Wanda
77. Sawdust and Tinsel
78. Through a Glass Darkly
79. Winter’s Light
80. Red Beard
81. Amarcord
82. Dr Zhivago
83. Giant
84. The Virgin Spring
85. Smiles of a Summer Evening
86. High and Low
87. Sanjuro
88. Stray Dog
89. The River
90. The Most Beautiful
91. The Life of Oharu
92. The Tale of the Last Chrysanthemum
93. Street Of Shame
94. Scandal
95. No Regrets For Our Youth
96. Sanshiro Sugata
97. I Live In Fear
98. The Lower Depths (Kurosawa)
99. The Hidden Fortress
100. Dersu Uzala
101. I was born but…
102. An Autumn Afternoon
103. Late Autumn
104. Princess Yang Kwei Fei
105. The Crucified Lovers
106. Utamaro and his 5 Women
107. The 47 Ronin (Mizoguchi)
108. A Canterbury Tale
109. The 49th Parallel
110. The House Is Black
111. Aparajito
112. The Big City
113. I Knew Her Well
114. Ashes and Diamonds
115. The Wages of Fear
116. Cleo from 5 to 7
117. The Devil and Daniel Webster
118. A Nous La Liberte
119. Dogtooth
120. Mon Oncle
121. Mr Hulot’s Holiday
122. Two Men and a Wardrobe
123. Beauty and the Beast
124. Red Desert
125. Umberto D
126. An Angel At My Table
127. The Philadelphia Story
128. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
129. Arsenic And Old Lace
130. The Seventh Seal
131. Pygmalion
132. Cries and Whispers
133. The Silence
134. The Night Porter
135. Rome Open City
136. Germany Year Zero
137. Journey to Italy
138. Paisan
139. Gallipoli
140. The Year of Living Dangerously
141. Army of Shadows
142. Weekend
143. Strike
144. Lift To The Gallows
145. Ivan’s Childhood
146. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
147. Belle De Jour
148. Britain Is Listening
149. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
150. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
151. The Shop Around The Corner
152. The Exterminating Angel
153. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
154. 1917
155. The Double Life of Veronique
156. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.
157. Mildred Pierce
158. Le Plaisir
159. Lola Montes
160. Letter From an Unknown Woman
161. Accatone
162. I’m No Angel
163. Holiday
164. The Heiress
165. Stagecoach
166. The Men Who Tread On The Tiger’s Tail
167. Drunken Angel
168. The Bad Sleep Well
169. Charulata
170. Masculin Feminin (chronological order starts here, 15 Jan)
171. Le Petit Soldat
172. I Vitelloni
173. Juliet of the Spirits
174. Nights of Cabiria
175. Il Bidone
176. 8 1/2 + 8 1/2 with commentary
177. La Strada
178. Les Mistons
179. Les 400 Coups + commentary
180. Shoot The Piano Player
181. Jules et Jim
182. L’Atalante
183. Day For Night
184. The Last Metro
185. La Regle du Jeu (Jan 26)
186. Persona
187. Wild Strawberries
188. City Lights
189. Meantime
190. Le Corbeau
191. Arrival
192. The Mirror
193. Night And Fog
194. A Trip To The Moon
195. Hiroshima Mon Amour
196. A Bout De Souffle (Jan 31)
197. Marketa Lazarova
198. Tokyo Drifter
199. Black Girl
200. Faces
201. Antoine and Colette
202. The Soft Skin
203. Stolen Kisses
204. Bed and Board
205. Two English Girls
206. Love On The Run
207. Throne of Blood
208. Yojimbo
209. Bande A Part
210. Dodes’ka den
211. Day of Wrath
212. Soul
213. Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne (Feb 7)
214. Osaka Elegy
215. Sisters Of The Gion
216. A Touch Of Zen
217. La Bête Humaine
218. Paths Of Glory
219. The Secret Of The Grain
220. The Seventh Continent
221. Code Unknown
222. The White Ribbon
223. The Piano Teacher
224. Gate Of Hell
225. Rashomon 
226. Dheepan (Feb 14th)
227. F For Fake
228. Wavelength
229. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
230. Divorce Italian Style
231. Rocco and his Brothers
232. A Taste of Cherry
233. Certified Copy
234. The Kid
235. Black Orpheus
236. La Notti Bianche
237. Foreign Correspondent
238. Floating Weeds (Feb 21st)
239. Floating Clouds
240. Three Colours: Blue
241. Three Colours: White
242. Three Colours Red
243. .In A Lonely Place
244. Celine and Julie Go Boating
245. Nomadland
246. Ivan The Terrible, Part 1
247. Ivan The Terrible, Part 2
248. Ministry of Fear
249. Judas And The Black Messiah
250. Senso
251. Red River
252. Kings of the Road
253. Paris Texas 
254. The Bad and the Beautiful 
255. Vagabond (Feb 28th)
256. The Traveling Players
257. The Damned
258. Fun With Dick And Jane
259. Out of the Past
260. A Tale Of Tales
261. La Terra Trema
262. Only Angels Have Wings
263. The Black Panthers
264. The Gleaners and I
265. Le Bonheur
266. Don’t Blink – Robert Frank
267. The Battleship Potemkin
268. The Revenant
269. The In-Laws (1979)
270. Kung Fu Master
271. Let The Sunshine In
272. October
273. Zazie Dans Le Metro
274. La Pointe Courte (March 7th)
275. The Turin Horse
276. Underground
277. Distant Voices, Still Lives
278. The Southerner
279. The Sacrifice
280. Riot In Cell Block 11
281. Letter From Siberia
282. Nostalghia
283. Mauvais Sang
284. Steamboat Bill Jnr.
285. Z
286. Portrait Of A Lady On Fire
287. Fear (Rosselini)
288. The Servant
289. Le Silence De La Mer
290. Bamboozled
291. The Go-Between
292. La Collectionneuse
293. Samurai Rebellion
294. The Chase
295. The Flowers Of St Francis (March 14th)
296. Ma Nuit Chez Maude
297. Doubt
298. King Kong (1933)
299. Stromboli
300. Promising Young Woman
301. Safety Last!
302. Always Sometimes Rarely Never
303. Les Enfants Terribles
304. Saute Ma Ville
305. The Sound Of Metal
306. Love In The Afternoon
307. Christmas In July
308. Another Round
309. Ida
310. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
311. The American Friend
312. The Green Ray
313. Magnet Of Doom (March 21st)
314. Paris Belongs To Us
315. Europa 51
316. Locke
317. Le beau Serge
318. Les Cousins
319. The Idle Class
320. Lola (Demy)
321. Autumn Sonata
322. The Private Life Of Henry The Eighth
323. Grey Gardens
324. Shame (Bergman)
325. Mon Oncle D’Amerique
326. Victim
327. Mad Max Fury Road
328. Life And Nothing But
329. Le Coup Du Berger
330. The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant
331. Charlotte Et Son Jules
332. We Need To Talk About Kevin
333. The Beaches of Agnes (March 28th)
334. Tokyo-Ga
335. L’Amore
336. 24 Hours In The Life Of A Clown
337. Mamma Roma
338. Junkopia
339. La Ricotta
340. Lacombe, Lucien
341. The Father
342. Mur Murs
343. They Live By Night
344. California Split
345. The World Of Gilbert And George
346. Duck Soup
347. La haine
348. White Tiger
349. A New Leaf
350. The Mission (April 2nd)
351. Tampopo
352. McCabe And Mrs Miller
353. Caught
354. The Firemen’s Ball
355. Days Of Wine And Roses
356. Man Push Cart
357. 35 Shots Of Rum
358. Le chant du styrene
359. Sunday In Peking
360. Grand Illusion
361. The Loves Of A Blonde
362. Man On The Moon (April 12th)
363. Gregory’s Girl
364. Les Enfants Du Paradis
365. One Night In Miami
366. The Bird With The Crystal Plumage
367. Sacrilege
368. This Sporting Life
369. Where Is The Friend’s Home?
370. Nanook Of The North
371. Life Goes On
372. Bottle Rocket
373. Through The Olive Trees
374. Overlord
375. Cast A Dark Shadow
376. An Education
377. Detour
378. The Mattei Affair
379. Town Bloody Hall
380. The Big Short
381. Brute Force
382. Dark Days
383. Accident
384. In The Mood For Love
385. Tom Jones
386. Black Peter (April 19th)
387. Sunset Song
388. Gilda
389. His Girl Friday
390. The Thin Blue Line
391. Nadja In Paris
392. Eraserhead
393. A Nos Amours
394. Claire’s Knee
395. Kapo
396. The Bakery Girl Of Monceau
397. Bad Timing
398. Suzanne’s Career
399. Police Story
400. Losing Ground
401. Mikey And Nicky
402. Sons Of The Desert
403. 48 Hrs
404. And God Created Woman
405. The Naked City
406. The Fall
407. Bob Le Flambeur
408. Morocco (April 25th)
409. Tunes Of Glory
410. One False Move
411. Wooden Crosses
412. Le Samourai
413. Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai
414. Weekend
415. My Brilliant Career
416. Harlan County USA
417. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
418. Salut Les Cubains
419. La Chambre
420. The Third Man
421. A Clockwork Orange
422. Secrets And Lies
423. The Last Detail
424. Kajillionaire
425. Day Of Freedom
426. House Of Games
427. Minnie and Moskowitz
428. The Last Movie
429. Roman Holiday (May 2nd)
430. The Wild Bunch
431. On Dangerous Ground
432. Irma Vep
433. The Great McGinty
434. Shane
435. Phantom India Part 1
436. Patton
437. L’enfance nue
438. L’amour existe
439. Doodlebug
440. Murmur Of The Heart
441. Palm Beach Story
442. Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
443. Gloria
444. The Reflecting Skin
445. Buena Vista Social Club
446. Bay Of Angels
447. The Hustler
448. Horse Feathers
449. Remember The Night (delightful Christmas movie)
450. Synonymes
451. White Rock
452. Weekends (May 9th)
453. The Stranger
454. Girlfriends
455. Le Trou
456. George Washington
457. Ars
458. La Luxure
459. The Lady Eve
460. Pixote
461. The Taking Of Power By Louis 14th
462. Le Havre (May 16th)
463. Burn
464. Revanche
465. The Miracle Of Morgan’s Creek
466. How Green Was My Valley
467. Donkey Skin
468. The Gambler
469. The Warriors
470. Bad Trip (May 23rd)
471. Adam’s Rib
472. The Human Condition
473. Le Amiche
474. La Gente Del Po
475. Le Deuxieme Souffle
476. To Sleep With Anger
477. Daguerrotypes
478. Judex
479. The Last Emperor
480. Chocolat (Denis) (May 30th)
481. Blood of the Beasts
482. Tucker: The Man And His Dream
483. The Kid With A Bike
484. Sansho The Bailiff (again)
485. L’Enfant
486. Le Grand Melies
487. La Promesse
488. Mr And Mrs. Smith (Hitchcock)
489. 2 Days And 1 Night
490. Incoherence
491. Rosetta
492. Young Ahmed
493. Lorna’s Silence
494. Moonstruck
495. Aguirre Wrath of God
496. Fitzcarraldo
497. Last Year At Marienbad
498. Fantastic Planet
499. The Cranes Are Flying
500. Ikiru
501. Kill List (June 6th)
502. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
503. Safe
504. A Week’s Vacation
505. The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit
506. Hard Eight
507. Images
508. Deep Blue Sea (2011)
509. Ran
510. Along For The Ride
511. The Class
512. Gimme Shelter (June 13th)
513. Diabolique
514. Under Satan’s Sun
515. Panique
516. Henry 5th (Olivier)
517. The Aviator
518. Orphée
519. Hunger
520. Sea Countrymen
521. Rush
522. Carnival of Souls (20th June)
523. Jacquot De Nantes
524. India Matri Bhumi
525. The Tree Of Wooden Clogs
526. Crossfire
527. Cameraperson
528. Cruising
529. Miss Julie
530. Bird
531. Animal Crackers
532. The Long Good Friday
533. Il Posto
534. I Fidanzati
535. Il Sorpasso
536. Golden Parable
537. La Cotta (27th June)
538. Late Chrysanthemums
539. Moonrise
540. Topsy Turvy
541. Spartacus
542. My Dinner With André
543. Swimmer
544. Born Yesterday
545. Bad Day At Black Rock
546. No Sudden Move
547. The Blue Angel
548. The Leopard (4th July)
549. Drugstore Cowboy
550. Mona Lisa
551. Andrei Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer
552. La Ceremonie
553. The Blue Dahlia
554. Scarface (1932) (11th July)
555. Cold Water
556. A Running Jump
557. The Set-Up
558. Drums Along The Mohawk
559. Hoop Dreams
560. The Children Are Watching Us
561. The Primary
562. The Young Girls of Rochefort
563. Confidential Report
564. Fat Girl
565. Lenny Cooke
566. Women Of The Night
567. Clouds of Sils Maria
568. The Trial Of Joan Of Arc (Bresson)
569. Following (18th July)
570. Day Of The Fight
571. L’Assassin Habite Au 21
572. High Fidelity
573. Limelight
574. La Ronde
575. Kuroneko
576. The Ruling Class
577. The Steel Helmet (25th July)
578. Minari
579. Dis-Moi
580. A Story Of Children And Film
581. Knock On Any Door
582. One Sings The Other Doesn’t
583. White Material
584. The Life Of Brian
585. The Other Side Of Hope
586. Toni
587. The Steamroller And The Violin
588. Au Revoir Les Enfants
589. Clockwatchers
590. Salesman
591. Tout Va Bien
592. Anatomy Of A Murder
593. La Chienne
594. It Should Happen To You
595. Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love (August 1st)
596. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
597. Kings Of Pastry
598. The Dead
599. Richard The Third
600. Vertigo
601. Bicycle Thieves
602. The African Queen
603. Bells Are Ringing (August 8th)
604. Lord Of The Flies (1963)
605. Black Narcissus
606. The White Sheik (August 15th)
607. That Obscure Object Of Desire
608. Night Moves
609. Slacker
610. Tristana
611. Diary Of A Chambermaid
612. Simon Of The Desert
613. This Is Spinal Tap
614. Death In The Garden
615. The Asphalt Jungle
616. The Phantom Of Liberty (August 22nd)
617. The man Who Would Be King
618. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
619. Knife In The Water

The National Jukebox of America.

Nyan Cat’s cousin.

Ancient Earth globe.

The ultimate shitposting site.

Cool and fancy fonts to copy and paste.

Chemical Brothers video:

Rich people love huge crystals.

Most Buddhist art is Greek.

Turn images into posters of any size.

Saddam Hussein anonymously published a romance novel… in 2000.

Why is Bicycle Thieves so great?

It feels like the last five years have given us a constant stream of binary opinion. From Leave/Remain in the UK to Trump/No Trump in the US to Masks Are An Evil Infringement on Freedom/Masks Save Lives Everywhere, the division of complicated issues into right/wrong, good/bad and them/us appears to be the order of the day.

But even within supposed two-horse situations, there are often many other horses involved. Take the 2019 UK General Election, in which the Conservatives beat Labour in a landslide. If you read the media coverage you might have missed the fact that 3,500,000 people voted Lib Dem, and 850,000 voted Green. And that doesn’t even take into account the many shades of difference within the two big parties: Brexiteer Conservatives, Fiscal Conservatives, ‘I Hate Corbyn’ Conservatives, All Of The Above Conservatives etc.

It’s the same with the Republicans in the US. They may seem like one homogenous mass of dumb, uncaring racists, but they are made up of all sorts of groups: Qanon nutjobs, law-and-order Miami Cubans, Christian Conservatives who are just taking the shortest path to the outlawing of abortion, Moderates who want lower taxes, a smaller homogenous mass of dumb, uncaring racists etc.

And look at the many and varied reason people have for giving the vaccine a swerve.

You might also have heard about issues such as ‘Cancel Culture’, where defenders of ‘free speech’ suggest that it’s bad and wrong to demonise people for their incendiary opinions. But if you scratch beneath the surface you’ll soon find that every one of them has something they too wish to ‘cancel’.

For example, here in America a TV host called Bill Maher continually goes on about how corrosive Cancel Culture is:

But he also goes on about hating many of the ‘oppressive’ elements of the Islamic faith, suggesting that they should be… um… canceled. Maybe, like him, you think that these are two different things, and that demanding that women wear burkas or banning homosexuality is a false equivalency when compared to Kevin Hart losing his Oscar hosting gig for being homophobic a decade earlier. But here’s the problem: plenty of Muslims would disagree with you, and that’s because there is no right or wrong here; only opinions. The problem is those opinions are often presented as hard fact, with a dash of straw man nonsense and some pejorative terms such as ‘woke mob’ (by the way, a Twitter user recently accused me of being ‘woke’ because I suggested Margaret Thatcher sometimes did her job in a way that not exactly compassionate. Subjectivity, eh?). I think Bill would be considered to be part of some kind of woke mob if he expressed his opinions in Saudi Arabia. And then he’d probably be murdered. Cancel culture indeed…

I get it. Bill is a comedian who exaggerates to make jokes, but he also uses double standards: he later concedes that people shouldn’t hold a ‘dress up like we’re in the Old South’ party. Is that cancellation? Political correctness gone mad? Where do you draw the line? How do you know? So I suppose he agrees with Cancel Culture, except when he doesn’t… The problems of binary expression.

Have a look at 2:30 in the above video. Bill takes a statistic that ‘80% believe political correctness is a problem’ (quite a vague assertion) and exaggerates it by listing demographics that cover everyone in America and saying they ‘all hate the current atmosphere of hypersensitivity’. Then he asserts that ‘everybody’ hates it, so it becomes even blacker and whiter, and less accurate, but at least it supports his point a bit more forcefully.

So cancel culture is complicated. It’s subjective. It’s contextual. Pretty much everyone wants to cancel something, but the idea of cancelling cancel culture is clearly the most ironic of ironies.

Which brings me to the current hand-wringing over purpose-based advertising. Again, this is a complicated subject that is often spoken about in binary terms. It seems that for many on my Linkedin and Twitter feeds, we as an entire industry are woke idiots who are promoting baseless social justice initiatives instead of getting down to the proper business of selling stuff. There is in fact an entire book out there called ‘Can’t Sell, Won’t Sell‘ whose subtitle is ‘Why adland has stopped selling and started saving the world’. Having read the whole thing I can tell you that it contains some interesting points, but even with a book with that definitive a title, the author mentions several instances of purpose-based advertising being a good thing. So why write a misleadingly binary title, subtitle and Amazon blurb paragraph for a non-binary book?

Has adland really stopped selling? Obviously not. The amount of purpose-based work is dwarfed by that which explicitly tries to sell stuff, but if you are of a mind to decry any purpose-based work, then you can certainly find many examples to back that opinion up. However, an overall assertion that this is advertising’s biggest difficulty deflects attention from larger, more problematic issues (eg: malignant data scraping, the massive talent and money drain to tech, the reduction of fees due to the rise of procurement departments etc.).

But here we are with the binary nature of 2021 language. Purpose bad, selling good, as if they can’t co-exist in any way, except when they do, very successfully (see Nike’s recent Cannes Effectiveness Grand Prix-winning Colin Kaepernick work; or Microsoft’s Gold Effie winner, Changing The Game; or Aeromexico’s Gold Effie-winning DNA Discounts campaign). Sure, many purpose attempts are more Kendall-Jenner-Pepsi than Kaepernick-Nike, but there are lots of crappy, poorly considered non-purpose ads out there, too, and the vast majority of them will get nowhere near a Gold Effie. Perhaps ‘purpose’ is simply another advertising genre, like ‘humour’ or ‘celebrity’, and like those it is done both well and badly, suggesting another situation full of shades of grey.

Additionally we are now in a similar set of circumstances regarding ‘diversity’ (my inverted commas are there to denote the subjective nature of defining that word in 2021) where middle-aged white people are winning discrimination cases. That’s a direct result of people speaking in black-and whie terms about complex issues. If you, as a female ECD, say you want to ‘obliterate’ your agency’s reputation for being full of white, privileged straight men, you might just leave your agency open to charges of gender-based discrimination (I must add here that Jo Wallace, who said that, seems like a decent, intelligent person who has been treated dreadfully by the gutter press).

It’s not a binary issue of ‘obliterating’ a certain demographic to favour others. It’s a very nuanced problem that takes in systemic discrimination, meritocracy, conscious and subconscious gender biases and several other deep, complex topics, each of which could justify an entire post-grad thesis. But this was not a case of oldish white man bad, everyone else good, and I’m pretty certain that’s not what Jo meant to suggest, but here we are in binary world where a complicated issue has left egg on a great many unfortunate faces, and caused massive damage to the very situation it sought to help. Who will now be brave enough to sack an oldish white guy? How much more likely is it that a sacked oldish white guy will take that sacking to a tribunal? What is intrinsically wrong with oldish white guys? (Full disclosure: I am an oldish white guy.)

I know we’ve reached this situation because of the way social media discourse works, with incendiary, attention-grabbing statements leading to clicks and sales, but if we don’t employ critical thinking and nuance in all areas, we might find ourselves shutting off potential avenues of success, or useful and necessary arguments, while heading off in the direction of some pointless fool’s gold.

The black and the white is where the easy shit lies. But it’s also where the bullshit lies. If you find yourself making a massive generalisation you’ll probably find yourself missing out a big chunk of truth. The title ‘Sometimes Sell, Sometimes Don’t Sell: Why adland occasionally uses purpose to great effect, but sometimes kind of fucks it up’ … Hang on, I was about to say that it wouldn’t be as good, but that’s actually a much better title, although it would have to be for a different book. Anyway, there’s no need to be definitive when reality is nothing of the sort. Sure, human beings like certainty and closure, but playing to that need betrays the opportunity to make the kind of difference that happens when you engage with what is actually the case, rather than the superficial headline version of things.

Sure, it requires more work and less simplistic thinking, but what are we saying? ‘Drain the swamp’ or ‘Let’s take a look at corruption in politics and see how we can reduce it’? ‘Lock her up’ or ‘Has this person acted in a way that contravenes any laws? If so, what should be done about it?’? ‘Get Brexit Done’ or ‘We should examine the ways in which leaving the EU might affect most of the people of Britain, then act in the best interests of the majority’?

Yes, the cheap sloganeering is easy to remember, and has incited many people to both support and action, but to what final result? ‘Move Fast And Break Things’ sounds great until you ask what might be broken and discover the answer is Western Democracy.

The simplicity of black and white is so tempting, but life tends to exist within the grey, and we ignore that at our peril.

There’s a lot of chat about AI copywriting at the moment. Companies such as this one have been offering some form of machine-generated advertising writing for a while now, and are understandably getting better at it.

Equally understandably, copywriters have been up in arms about this. How could a machine/robot create something as artistically pure as a combination of words that informs people that frozen chickens are available for 20% off at Sainsbury’s?

I jest, but I kind of don’t. There’s a reason why someone thought a computer could come up with copywriting and it might be a little hard to swallow: most copywriting is not very good, and it’s also not very difficult. When you see the post copy on a Facebook ad for cheap wine, or the headlines on most posters, or you listen to most radio ads you probably think, ‘What a load of rubbish. I bet a crappily-programmed robot could do better’. Well, you weren’t the only one.

I get that there are many other elements to the job that AI might still find difficult/impossible. These include thinking up a concept (although most ads don’t seem to bother with them), taking feedback and reworking ads to a client’s satisfaction (I think this one will save all our careers. Clients are not usually good at this, but they are also not usually happy with the first ten versions they are offered), and coming up with something original that no one was expecting (also becoming vanishingly rare). But when it comes to some basic-bitch copywriting, they are as good as at least some of us.

And here’s how that happened: our predecessors wrote a lot of shitty ads, then many of us did the same.

So they/we made the job look easy, and that’s what made other people think they could program a computer to do it. Yes, I know they’re getting AI to do some very difficult jobs these days, but the artier ones, the ones that involve excellent creativity, are the hardest to replicate. Rubbish creativity, on the other hand: piece of piss.

This isn’t the first time we’ve shot ourselves in the foot by making the job look easy. Back in the early 2000s there was a fashion for finding a good short film by an unknown director, slapping a logo on the end and entering it into advertising awards. Here’s an example:

Spot the difference (good luck).

This was then followed by several years of doing the same thing with interesting YouTube clips. For example:

Although the above are both very good ads, and every artist borrows from somewhere, this straight lifting of other people’s work made the job look very easy. Why pay lots of money for an ad agency when an enterprising 15-year-old searching YouTube could produce the same result?

Is it a coincidence that ad agencies are paid much less than they used to be? I don’t think so. Although several factors have contributed to this situation, I think you could make a good case that devaluing our creative currency has been one of the biggest. Making great ads used to be a mysterious process, only managed by a select few. Now it looks much easier, and therefore worth much less.

A third process has contracted things still further: digital and social media is cheap, quick, disposable and done very well by kids and idiots (and both). So it was partly we who made this part of adland look easier, and partly others, but check out the average corporate social media feed and ask yourself honestly: does that look so difficult that it should be expensive or time consuming?

Nah.

We’ve gone from great creatives (sometimes) writing and art directing ads in such a way that it looked very difficult, to crap that looks (and often is) cheap and easy. And when we did that we let crappier practitioners seem perfectly capable of doing it to a professional level: computers and kids. Who needs excellent, experienced humans when the opposite can give you 80% of the quality at 30% of the price?

We unwittingly made our own bed, and now we must lie in it.

Making fun of preparing for emergencies.

Writing is rewriting. and this site.

Find the cost of living in every city in the world.

Mock up a book in 3-D.

Cool Kubrick documentary:

When Stanley Kubrick was making The Shining…

He recorded the sound of a typist hammering out the words “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”, because he thought the sound each key made on a typewriter was slightly different and he wanted complete accuracy. To make sure that the line was as effective in foreign versions, Kubrick painstakingly translated it into idiomatic German, French, Spanish and Italian and re-shot the scene, placing the translations in the typewriter for Jack’s wife Wendy (played by Shelley Duvall) to find. The Spanish phrase “No por mucho madrugar amanece más temprano” (No matter how early you get up, you can’t make the sun rise any sooner) captures the tone of crepuscular horror perfectly.

That’s just one of the many stories of Kubrickian perfectionism. He never compromised, went to extraordinary lengths and drove his actors crazy with endless takes. So that’s how you achieve excellence, isn’t it? You obsess over details and never let up in your monomaniacal drive to achieve your singular vision.

Maybe.

Jean Luc-Godard, a similarly revered director did nothing of the sort. In making his classic Breathless, he ‘wrote the script as he went along‘. ‘Filming began on 17 August 1959. Godard met his crew at the Café Notre Dame near the Hôtel de Suède and shot for two hours until he ran out of ideas.’ ‘Actor Richard Balducci has stated that shooting days ranged from 15 minutes to 12 hours, depending on how many ideas Godard had on a given day‘. ‘(Director of Photography) Coutard said that when (producer) de Beauregard encountered Godard at a café on a day on which Godard had called in sick, the two engaged in a fistfight.’

In addition, like many European directors of the time, Godard employed American actors who did not speak French/Italian/Spanish and simply dubbed the appropriate language over their English line reads. Jack Palance in Le Mepris, Burt Lancaster in Il Gattopardo, Alain Delon in L’Eclise… I just want to emphasise that these are some of the greatest films of all time, and the sound doesn’t match the mouth movements – and there’s not even a pretence of an attempt to do that!

In later films they worked out that the mouth shapes for the Italian/French words could be matched to the mouth shapes of English numbers, so an English actor’s line would be ‘Three, seventeen, nine, four, twelve’. Not the actual lines with the emotional content of the correct words, but a list of numbers.

Let me add still further: Fellini liked to direct as the acting was happening. He would shout at the actors as they were reading their lines, even the Italian ones. This meant that all the dialogue was post-synched, so it had none of the ambient sound, and didn’t match perfectly.

All that is to say that Kubrick (and other great perfectionist directors, such as Ozu, Chaplin and Malick) would presumably have had a fit about any of the above. If he insisted typewriter sounds were perfect, can you imagine him dubbing over a carefully chosen actor’s voice so it didn’t match the mouth movements? Or making up the story as he went along? Perfection and spontaneity are not easy bedfellows.

So which is best? Perfectionism or looseness? If you squeeze too hard, do you destroy the delicate object in your hand? Or is it possible that the wrong colour blouse or a misplaced apple can destroy or compromise an entire creative vision?

With so many greats on either side of the argument, it might be better to define perfection. What Kubrick et al would see as the essential control of every element until it matches the vision in their head, Godard might see as a lighter, more emotional expression of an artistic idea, with the spontaneity being as crucial to him as the control was to Kubrick.

I was involved in making two ads for the same big client a while ago. One had a budget of millions, was minutely planned and examined, and involved thirty agency staff. The other had a budget of ten thousand dollars, was briefed in by two mid-level creatives, and forgotten about until the directors sent in the final result. Both were excellent, and I think each would have suffered if they’d experienced the same level of budget and attention as the other.

I know of excellent art directors who are happy to brief a photographer then wait till he sends the finished shots in. I also know of excellent art directors who minutely micromanage their photographers. I also know of excellent art directors who work wonders with stock shots.

I know of excellent copywriters who pore for days over every syllable in a three-word line. I also know of excellent copywriters who find great phrases hidden in company brochures. I also know of excellent copywriters who crank out hundreds of words as easily as they breathe.

So there’s no agreed-upon path to greatness, and the important thing about that is the fact that your method might be the best route to the best work, but so might anyone else’s. That’s not to say that sitting around doing nothing is the most likely way to win a Cannes Grand Prix, but bunking off to see a movie could prove as effective as pulling an all-nighter. Letting a top director do their stuff could be as useful as constantly looking over their shoulder and insisting they do fifteen more takes. Nailing down a script might be a good idea, but so might turning up with an outline and seeing what you might get from a bit of improvisation.

Try a bit of Kubrick, then maybe go for a touch of Godard. There’s no right or wrong; only what works – and many, many things can work brilliantly.

Spend Elon Musk’s money.

Simple graphs that show your region’s temperature change over time.

Turn your drawing into a 3-D model.

How procurement departments screw ad agencies:

Create your own drum machine.

Your life in weeks.

Cats looking at cats looking at cats.

Run a country during a pandemic.

The worst commercials of all time: