Starting next Saturday, Trespass is launching a new weekly column titled- I Can’t Believe I’ve Never Seen…, in which our writers will review the films missing from their cinematic education. Essentially this new column can be seen as cinema homework, each week one writer will watch a film they know they should have seen as a cinephile, but never have.
To give you a taste of what is coming up, here is a little bit of information about how each writer will be selecting titles.
GLENN DUNKS
I have had the 960-page non-fiction book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die on my metaphorical bookshelf (my house is too small for trivia things like shelves) for well over several years now. Whether you’re a novice, just beginning your trek through the cinephile wilderness, or a trivia-busting film expert, the book is still an exceptional tome as it lists, in chronological order, the films that all movie watchers should see.
The original 2003 edition begins with Georges Méliès’s pioneering Le Voyage Dans la Lune from 1902 and ends with Quentin Tarantino’s blood-splattered Kill Bill, Vol. 1. I have managed to see just under 500 – a shameful amount, really – but with this new project I aim to see some of the more glaring omissions and, with the help of my home city’s screen culture, do so on the big screen where they belong. No longer will I have to shy away from discussions of these so-called masterpieces that I chose not to see in favour of watching Burlesque for the tenth time. No longer, I say!
MELISSA WELLHAM
French New Wave directors rejected classical cinematic form and embraced radical experimentation. While names like Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and Francois Truffaut may not be familiar to even film-buffs without an extensive education in European art house (though most would certainly recognise the name of Jean-Luc Godard) they have gone on to influence filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorcese and Michel Gondry. These influential films from the 1960s have certainly been missing from my own film education – and I will take this column as an opportunity to rectify the situation. Besides, street shots of Paris – is there anything more beautiful?
SEAN ROM
My house-mate tells me I’m a movie snob. Time and time again, I will return from the video shop to the exclaim of “not another one of your pretentious movies”. So now I think it’s time to set aside my perchance for grungy, hipster, foreign, art house films, and take a look at some of the classics of the pop culture that have remained unseen by me. I think Star Wars is probably a good start…
SARAH WARD
When contemplating the films I can’t believe I’ve never seen, it’s difficult to know where to start. Until recently, I’m embarrassed to admit that Eraserhead and Easy Rider graced that list, as did In The Mood For Love and Labyrinth, with many more in the same category. With selecting what to watch next a constant dilemma, I’m opting for a tried and tested option: my well-thumbed copy of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, published in 2003. I’ve long stopped trying to keep a record of how many I’ve seen, however it’s certainly not enough. It’s time to change that.
BETH WILSON
I was walking out of a media screening of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive a few months ago and another film critic started a conversation with me about the similarities between the film we had just seen and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï. With an embarrassed smile I had to admit my complete ignorance of Melville’s seminal 1967 film. However this film is certainly not the only gap in my cinematic education, there are definitely Bergman, Cassavetes and Wilder shaped holes in my cinematic knowledge too. Deciding which gaps to try and fill first hasn’t been easy, so I’m going to rely on The Guardian’s list of ‘1000 Films to See Before You Die‘ and I’m going to arbitrarily pick titles from the S section, starting with Le Samouraï.
