Movies To See Before You Die
by Kieth Merrill
“Give me a list of the movies I should see before I die.”
The woman was serious. I am often asked for a list of my favorite films. I’ve learned to toss a caboodle of treasured titles from my movie memory without giving it much thought. It always seemed sufficient. Not this time.
“Before you die?” I ask. I dreaded the pronouncement of some pending doom. My personal paradigm of the meaning of movies in mortality began to shift. What never mattered was banging on the stage door of my mind.
“Very serious,” she insisted, “I don’t want to miss anything praiseworthy, lovely or of good report.”
Ada Carpenter is 85. She loves life and continues to live it with a kind of positive infectious exuberance. In spite of her age — which may barely qualify her to ask the question — Ada hardly looks ready to confirm a reservation for the definitive thrill ride through the bright, white tunnel. We met on a cruise of the western Caribbean. * I was there as back up headliner to the brilliant Michael Ballum and marvelous O’Neil Miner. They sang and played pianos. I talked movies and told tall tales. With the wisdom of years well spent and the understanding of what was possible in the years ahead, Ada Carpenter was intent on adding meaningful moments from memorable movies to the medley of her mortal experience.
Joseph Smith said, “Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.” [D&C 130:18-19]
Until Ada twisted my brain around her uncommon request I had never focused on – or perhaps appreciated — the role of movies in the acquisition of “knowledge and intelligence in this life.” I had certainly never imagined that watching 75-80 films a year as a member of the Motion Picture Academy might give me some advantage in the world to come. It is an easy oversight. Lets face it. Most movies are hardly candidates for the lofty end of culture and refinement. Moreover, movies don’t require diligence or obedience. All you need is 8 bucks, an appetite for popcorn and a couple of hours to sit in the dark.
But Ada loves movies. She always has. She scandalized the ward in Cedar City, Utah 50 years ago when she took her family to see The Ten Commandments on Sunday after church. The spirit of the law has always been more important to her than the letter.
Getting to know her made it clear that beyond this final quest of hers for whatever “knowledge and intelligence” in movies she may have missed, Ada was also anxious to make sure -looking back from heaven I suppose- that she got to see the really good movies that do little more than delight and entertain.
She was serious and so I took her request seriously. Making Ada’s list was an awesome assignment — and I do not use the word in the context of contemporary vernacular but as it was intended. I prepared the list for Ada in the shadow of a prophet’s declaration and with a sense of real reverence. It was daunting. It was enlightening. It was awe-inspiring.
MOVIES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE. Hmmm.
I wrote the heading and began. Some movies are self-evident. I wrote them down with confidence. Some I added because I knew that they would delight and entertain. Some I felt inclined to qualify with notes and explanations. Some that seem to qualify under the quest for “knowledge and intelligence” were curiously the ones that needed descriptive warnings and words of caution. Some made the list but were deleted.
Making Ada’s list resulted in a revised perspective of myself that was both fascinating and insightful. Recommending films for her – “to see before I die” — was much different than jotting down a list of my favorite films. I realized that while there may be a few classics on which everyone can agree, most films are absorbed, enjoyed, cherished or rejected at a much more personal level. The list I made for Ada was not the same list I made for myself.
Great films can enlighten, inspire and entertain. Like great literature – and if I may be so bold, like the scriptures themselves – there are layers of meaning discovered only by revisiting the people, places and perceptions suspended in time and space by the magic of a motion picture. The impact on the viewer is influenced by the mindset of the moment, their emotional state and the diverse circumstances of time, place and experience surrounding their two hours in the dark.
Ultimately a film is perceived through the kaleidoscopic lens of one’s own complex accumulation of life’s experiences. Even critics do not often agree on what is good and what is bad and where the meaning lies. Audiences have diverse tastes. Individuals assimilate the immersive encounter with sight and sound at very personal levels. Viewers of my own films have shared with me their experience of discovering “something new” in a second or third viewing of a film.
The added levels of intellection quite often come from the perspective of years – and inevitable maturity. If you managed to sit through The Matrix more than twice in spite of the choreographed violence you know what I am talking about. The Matrix was not on Ada’s list.
Video and DVDs have significantly changed our access to movies. Collecting films is a recent phenomenon. The role of films in our culture is taking the place of more traditional sources of information. Fllms are becoming a grammar of popular culture and living library of our life and times. They are changing the role of movies in our mortal experience.
It is both fun and frightening to dredge up the favorite films of our youth and watch them on DVD. They are not at all what we remembered. The shocking change of our “enlightened” perception is a measure of us. The film has remained the same.
Movies have a tremendous influence on the way we understand the world and to some significant extent, the way we define ourselves. Much has been written about the impact of media and movies. My own articles and speeches are replete with starling statistics affirming the correlation between media and behavior. But it was not until I made my list for Ada, that I appreciated what a massive influence movies have been in my own life. Yes, movies have played a major role in my accumulated “knowledge and intelligence”. I hope they qualify as acceptable sources.
My “epiphany of Ada’s list” is simplistic if you understood it already. If you didn’t, it might just be profound.
Growing up in Farmington, Utah I went to the ward show. Whoever it was in our small rural town that had the vision to put twin 35 mm movie projectors in the cultural hall of our old rock church is an unknown hero of my early life. I plan to look him up in the Great Beyond and buy him a 16-ounce rib eye. [Do we eat other critters in Heaven? Hmmm]
From the time I was 7 years old, I went to a movie every Thursday night. One film, played twice, at 7 and 9:00 PM. We called it “the ward show.” Curiously when my mind drifts back to childhood memories of time spent in the church I see myself on a hard chair waiting for a movie to begin more easily than remembering where we held the primary. Maybe whoever put those projectors in doesn’t get to go to heaven.
There was no MPAA rating system then. There was only my angel mother who diligently plied the pages of Parent’s Magazine to insure that the movie playing Thursday night at “the ward show” was acceptable for her little boy. She knew I LOVED movies in an almost obsessive sort of way.
When mother started thumbing through her magazine my fate hung in the balance. Who wrote those reviews for parents anyway? What did they know about what movies meant to me? I began to beg. Missing the ward show was to me the worse kind of cruel and unusual punishment. I don’t remember missing many. I even told white lies about what was showing because I knew that my mom would ALWAYS let me go to a movie about horses. The Golden Stallion played at least hundred times according to what I told my mom.
As a youngster and into my early teens I was memorized by the magical moving light and sound that transformed the large white canvas hanging from the ceiling into worlds I had never imagined. When the lights went out I was transported. If aliens from space invaded the old rock church, plunged a syringe of exotic elixirs into my veins and carried me away to a distant planet I would not have been more dazzled or impressed than I was as a boy watching movies. I was only a little kid in a tiny town but that brilliant rectangle of flickering light was a magic portal through which I passed to endless worlds both real and imagined.
Making Ada’s list I closed my eyes and tried to remember the great films of my childhood. Images bubbled up from memory and flooded my mind with a marvelous monster wave of nostalgia. In the end, only a few of the movies I remember from those early days were put on Ada’s list. But in visiting those early movie memories, I was struck by how my perception of the world and my understanding of how the world worked was formed by what I saw in the old rock chapel. Interestingly, that has never changed. It continues still. My love of movies has not subsided.
Summer before last I visited Africa for the first time. I went with Dagny and our two marvelous college kids. We were searching for film locations. One day we drove a dirt track that wound its way westward through Tarangire National Park in Tanzania. We splashed through a shallow stream and bounded up the muddy bank. Emerging from the dense thicket of growing things clinging to life at the water’s edge, we encountered a herd of elephants. They were crossing the road in front of us, then suddenly behind. We slowed, proceeded slowly and kept our eyes on the enormous female. She thrashed her head and signaled her anxiety about being separated from her calf. Suddenly she charged our Land Rover. She was huge. Her thick muscular trunk was raised. It arched forward between her tusks like a choleric claw. Her tattered ears were flared and framed her massive head like great gray wings. Our guide’s description of an angry African elephant had been perfectly accurate, but no word picture had prepared us for the unexpected reality and terror of this moment.
Our experienced driver and guide had taken great care to avoid getting between the massive beast and her rambling offspring, but we were in the African bush and Loxodonta Africana – the great mastodon beasts of Africa — are wild and unpredictable.
Some one remarked that no depiction of trumpeting elephants they had ever seen or heard came close to the shrill ear-piercing squall of this distressed and defensive mamma. Not so for me. I had been there before. It was 1952. I was at the ward show in Farmington, Utah. Before I climbed into the Land Rover in the city of Dar es Salaam, I had entered this world through that magic portal of light in an old rock church in a little town on the other side of the world.
As a kid I saw Humphrey Bogart in Shara and African Queen and I loved going to Africa with John Wayne in Hatari. The Snows of Kilimanjaro was in some ways the most influential film of my young life. It is a story for another time. I was only a kid but King Solomon’s Mines allowed me to tromp the African bush with Stewart Granger . I was only ten years old but I loved Deborah Kerr as much as he did and worried for her just as much. I saw every Tarzan movie ever made, even Greystoke; The Legend of Tarzan and Disney’s wonderful animated adventure, Tarzan , which I forgot to put on Ada’s list but should have.
The point is, I had been charged by elephants before. The perceptions pegged to my memory by movies seen 50 years before were vivid and remarkably like the reality. And so it has been with many of the adventures of my life. I understood why Ada at 85 was still searching for the other magic portals of light inviting her to places she has never been, showing her things that she has never seen and allowing her to explore ideas, meet people and experience feelings that she can never have without the magic of movies.
Ada’s list of “FILMS TO SEE BEFORE I DIE” grew longer. I was astounded over and again by how my understanding of people and places, causes and cultures, history and heroes and to a large extent, my youthful perception of right and wrong, good and evil and virtue and vice has been nurtured – and in some cases planted – by the movies of my life.
As the connection between good movies and my perception of the world became increasingly obvious I shuttered to consider the chords of corruption that had likewise polluted my perceptions and tainted by soul. There are so many great and good films we shall not take time to dwell on the thousands that are unworthy rejects in the pursuit of “knowledge and intelligence.”
My best friend and dear wife, Dagny, peered over my shoulder while I was working on this article and read the draft in progress. “Include the list,” she said. “You can’t talk about it and then not publish it.” Dagny is always right, but for once I did not follow her advice. For starters it is Ada’s list. Moreover, I dare not stand below the falling anvil of responsibility by making a list that some will surely misconstrue as Brother Merrill recommend movies only to discover that some of them are not available for rent from Hollywood Video in heaven.
Ok, I’ll talk about a few. I will tell you the first film on Ada’s list. It’s the classic of classic from Director Frank Capra, my hero, mentor and friend. It’s A Wonderful Life. No one will argue with that one.
In making a list of “The Best Movies”, no two people can agree. Making a list for someone else of ‘MOVIES TO SEE BEFOE I DIE” is actually impossible.
As filmmakers of course there is a whole sort of snooty esoteric list of classic films you only know about if you have taken an offbeat college courses with a beguiling name like, “Cinema and Culture” or “The Rise of Fall of The Auteur in French Cinema” or “Film Appreciation 101”. I’ll spare you reference to any of them.
My odyssey for Ada left me grateful for great films. Great films have added much to my life, yes; even I dare claim, ” knowledge and intelligence”. I trust these marvelous movies will not be discounted as accredited sources of “K & I” on the great score card in the sky. At first blush they do seem to demand the minimum in “diligence and obedience”. On the other hand, it does require diligence to select films that are praiseworthy, and obedience to avoid R-rated and other films with depictions of decadence and darkness.
I will not print Ada’s list but I will share some insights of the process.
The framework for my understanding of Jewish culture was constructed from motion pictures long before my first visit to Israel. Exodus, Fiddler on the Roof, Yentel, Life is Beautiful, Chariots of Fire and of course the controversial, but brilliant, Schindler’s List have gently tutored me over a life time with perceptions of empathy, understanding and a sincere respect for Jewish history and culture. In recent months, The Pianist, nominated for 6 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, has likewise added another unexpected layer of historical perspective and understanding that has enriched my life in positive ways.
Having been born to parents active in the LDS church leaves me uncertain to what extent my perception of Christ, Christian history and Christian values have been influenced by movies beyond the tradition and culture of Mormonism. But I can certainly remember the sense of pride and confirmation I felt when the biblical epics of Cecil B DeMille and the Christian films that followed came to our town and immersed us in images that animated the stories we had first heard in primary.
The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, The Robe, King of Kings, and The Greatest Story Ever Told all made the cut. It was presumptuous of course but I also included Legacy and The Testaments on Ada Carpenter’s list. Before I die I am determined to add at least one more title to the list of great Christian epics that will one day be on all the lists.
Chariot’s of Fire forever changed my attitudes about the courage of faith and the true meaning of the Sabbath day. It is a classic in my opinion and was put on Ada’s list.
Lawrence of Arabia introduced me to a place, people and perception that has become in current times the anxious focus of the world. If you saw it once and liked it you may enjoy seeing it again. Be sure to get the new re-mastered release of the Director’s original cut available on DVD. It is remarkable. It clarifies certain suspicions and elevates the character of Lawrence even more.
When director Robert Wise translated New York musicals to the silver screen he lifted the predictable link between stage and screen to an astounding new level of entertainment. His best work, The Sound of Music is a magnificent true story set at a crucial time and place in history that implants new ideas and changes perception at many levels. My introduction to Nazi Germany came from motion pictures including this one. Seeing the film in 1965 compelled me to visit Salzburg, Austria five years later and find the Abbey feature in the film. I did and use it for a segment in a documentary film I was making in Europe at the time.
All of us are impacted by the movies we see. It would be fascinating to know what influence Peggy Wood had on the thousands of faithful young women who followed her into the convent as the result of her remarkable depiction of humanity, humor and compassion in the character of Reverend Mother. And who among us can watch this definitive masterpiece with its themes of love, patriotism, service, sacrifice and family without our hearts being softened and touched? Sound of Music was among the first films I put on Ada’s list.
I cannot quite imagine my life as the father of 6 daughters without having known Tevye and his daughters. Based on the short story by that name, the marvelous motion picture, Fiddler on the Roof was easily added to Ada’s list. Lighthearted and delightful, the cast of marvelous characters allows us to find ourselves and there is much to learn about our own lives in the issues of struggle, poverty and persecution. Like Tevye we who are Mormons are bound to our traditions – our Legacy of Faith.
On a personal note, the seasoned love between Tevye and his wife became for me an enlightened and delightful glimpse into the future of my own life and the meaning of enduring love. Many times I have heard the sweet song of Tevye’s faithful wife in the tireless service to me and mothering of my children by my own wife Dagny who by her every action answers the question “do you love me.”
The impact of the great musicals on on our family has been and continues to be immeasurable. The King and I, Mary Poppins, Camelot, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Wizard of Oz, Hello Dolly, West Side Story, Singing in the Rain, and Annie. The list goes on and on. One of our favorites is a little known musical made for the screen called, Slipper and The Rose. If you’ve not seen it add it to your list, rent it on DVD and love it as we do. These films have taken us to Broadway and the music and stories have shaped and defined our lives.
As we enter the war to liberate Iraq and as I made my list for Ada, I realized that much of what I know of war came from the movies. The Longest Day, Sands of Iwo Jima, Bridge on the River Kwai, Patton, Guns of Navarone, Dirty Dozen, The Deer Hunter, Platoon, We were Soldiers,Tora, Tora, Tora and Saving Private Ryan, Some of these are disturbing films. Each takes us into war a different way. Only a few were put on Ada’s list.
Animated films transcend reality but curiously are often the finest teachers of fundamental principles. Many of them ended up on Ada’s list. Who can imagine life – knowledge and intelligence notwithstanding — without the world of Walt Disney? All of the them are good, some are great. Snow White, Cinderella, Pinocchio; you know the list. You buy them every time they’re released. Some of more recent vintage of animated masterpieces – and following the death of Walt Disney — have drifted with the winds of political correctness but remain in most cases worthy of our time as delightful entertainment. Little Mermaid, Lion King, Beauty and Beast, Toy Story, Monster’s Inc. and Prince of Egypt from DreamWorks. There are others in and out of the Disney domain of delightful charm and worth..
Speaking to the faculty and staff of BYU, President Spencer W. Kimball said, “Can we not find equal talent to those who gave us A Man For All Seasons, Dr. Zhivago, and Ben Hur? My Fair Lady and the Sound of Music have pleased their millions, but I believe we can improve on them.”
I am not sure we can improve on Sound of Music but critics argue that David Lean’s brilliance in creating Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia was crippled in his later films, including Doctor Zhivago, by a melodramatic love story unworthy of the scale of his historical epics. (It is exactly what was wrong with Michael Bay’s disappointing “epic”, Pearl Harbor that is why Tora Tora Tora made the list and the more recent and technically spectacular version did not)
Roger Ebert said, “Doctor Zhivago is an example of superb old-style craftsmanship at the service of a soppy romantic vision.” I have seen the film more than once and frankly I found it seductive and at least one level enlightening. Going with David Lean on his journey into his painstaking reconstruction of Tsarist Russia during the revolution was worth the investment of mind and time. Zhivago was removed from Ada’s list.
President Kimball’s other points of reference, A Man For All Seasons, Ben Hur, My Fair Lady and as noted, Sound of Music are all on Ada’s list. A Man for All Seasons typifies a genre of classic tales of great characters, most of them historical. Some from the genre made Ada’s list. Amadeus, Brave Heart, Dances with Wolves, Patriot and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington were among them.
A film becomes a classic because it speaks to the universal themes of mankind. It follows then that every “great film” at some level contributes to “knowledge and intelligence” and adds something to our mortal life that will follow us to the next. For better or for worse.
A lot of the movies on Ada’s list were not measured by the power of pedagogy but by how enjoyable they are to watch. This is a really long list with great films like, Flight of the Phoenix, Black Stallion, Romancing the Stone, Raiders of the Lost Ark, What’s Up Doc, The Great Escape, A Christmas Story, Back to the Future, Miracle on 34th Street, Jaws, and Star Wars (the first one). You have already started your own list haven’t you? “What about Spiderman, Zorro, The Last Crusade, Superman , Lord of the Rings, and Forrest Gump? And how could we not add Big Fat Greek Wedding and last year’s spectacular film, Gladiator? It is an impossible task.
If you draft your lists by genre it will never end. I love westerns. Stage Coach, High Noon, True Grit, Magnificent Seven, Quigley Down Under, Silverado and of course, The Great American Cowboy. As a filmmaker I appreciated Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven but it is dark and may not qualify as good stuff in heaven.
Ada actually asked for the top ten films she had to see before she died. The final list hand written on the ship covered most of two pages. I was inspired by Mr. Holland’s Opus and am compelled by popular demand to mention Gone With the Wind even though North and South and the current Gods and Generals are a more edifying – if terrible – glimpse at the American Civil war. “Knowledge and intelligence of some advantage.”
Some films can be measured in simple cause and effect. I put Father of the Bride on Ada’s list even though it cost me a lot of money. I watched it on a plane flight from New York to San Francisco. I was Steve Martin. The brooding father of the bride was I. I was ashamed. For both the weddings of my first two daughter’s I did nothing but murmur and complain. It was always about money. I had no idea this traditional conspiracy between a mother and her daughter could cost the dad so much.
That all changed watching Father of the Bride. “Never again,” I vowed as I wiped the tears from my eyes and swallowed the lump in my throat. “Next time I will be understanding, giving, generous, a perfect father of the bride.”
My wife and daughter were waiting at the curb to pick me up. “Guess what Daddy,” my daughter enthused. “I got engaged.” She enjoyed the most elaborate and expensive wedding the family ever saw. Movies with meaning make a difference in our lives.
P.S. When Joseph Smith was asked whether it was OK to read the Apocrypha he said, ” whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth; And whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit there from; and whoso receiveth not by the Spirit, cannot be benefited.” [D&C 91)
When Kieth Merrill was asked whether it was really OK to go see all of the movies on his list he quoted the prophet.
Discerning “what qualifies as “virtuous, lovely of good report and praiseworthy” is a personal matter of serious spiritual significance.
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