Donald Fagen’s Top10
“It’s silly to choose ten, but okay!” wrote Donald Fagen, the American songwriter and musician best known as the cofounder and lead singer of Steely Dan, when presented with the task of picking his favorite titles in the Criterion Collection. The results reveal Fagen as a major fan of art-house classics, especially ones by Fellini (who takes his top two slots). And we’re not surprised he relates to a tale of musical creation like Topsy-Turvy.
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1
Federico Fellini
8½
Mastroianni’s midlife crisis is used to explore the complex interior life of man. Fellini’s masterpiece is effervescent, scary, and profound, transcending film itself.
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2
Federico Fellini
Juliet of the Spirits
Same idea from a woman’s point of view, but created in the wake of the maestro’s LSD experience. It’s magical, and he gets the colors right.
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3
Gregory La Cava
My Man Godfrey
A rich guy pretending to be a butler during the Great Depression, the great William Powell’s best part. Plus Carole Lombard. It’s a thoughtful riot.
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4
John Schlesinger
Billy Liar
In the early sixties, young Tom Courtenay knows he’s got to leave soul-killing Yorkshire and escape to London, where it’s all about to happen. Awesome Julie Christie tries to help, but can Tom get it together?
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5
Ingmar Bergman
Fanny and Alexander: Theatrical Version
All the depth of Bergman’s earlier work plus youth and joy.
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6
Carl Th. Dreyer
Day of Wrath
Carl Dreyer loved women, and understood their sociosexual dilemma. This glowing 1943 film about a witch hunt in seventeenth-century Denmark is still a shocker.
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7
Elia Kazan
On the Waterfront
It was you, Charlie.
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8
Carol Reed
The Third Man
I’ve seen this picture a zillion times but always find something new to wonder about. Graham Greene, Carol Reed, Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Nazis, gangsters, Hitchcockian surrealism, innovative cinematography, a moody babe, Vienna, a zither for ear candy: it’s all here.
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9
Mike Leigh
Topsy-Turvy
About the working life of Gilbert and Sullivan and what it takes to create a work of art. Jim Broadbent and the rest of the cast nail it down. Original, moving, but never sentimental.
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10
Bruce Robinson
Withnail and I
Among other things, the best film about the demise of the sixties counterculture. With iconic performances by Richard E. Grant, Richard Griffiths, and the unbelievable Ralph Brown. Stupidly funny.
