10 Best Films of All Time: Margaret Roarty
2. Titanic (1997)
“Now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me, in every way a person can be saved.”
I have absolutely no idea when I first saw Titanic, but I do know that from a young age I was intimately familiar with having to change the VHS tape halfway through the movie. I always knew that Titanic held a special place in my heart, but it’s also probably one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen. Even though I’ve memorized practically every line, it is still such a rush.
It’s just so epic. The scale is insane, and the commitment and care James Cameron gave is truly admirable. It’s that attention to detail, the obvious passion and love, that makes Titanic what is it. It’s made by someone who cared deeply about the story he was telling.
Titanic is a visual spectacle, but it never once feels exploitative. That’s why the movie is so long. It forces you to sit there and endure every minute of terror that these very real people went through. It’s a pretty damning critique of man’s ego and hubris. By focusing on the luxury of Titanic, on the white China, the vast suites, the superiority of the first class, Cameron shows us that none of it matters. He destroys all of it in spectacular fashion. Everything and everyone, regardless of class, meets the same fate, forever on the bottom of the ocean.
The ship always sinks. Jack always dies. You know the ending, but you watch it anyway, hoping that maybe this time it’ll be different. It’s that hope that makes Titanic such a worthy watch.
1. Gone with the Wind (1939)
“You are no gentleman.”
“And you, miss, are no lady.”
There’s only one movie on this list I ever actually considered, at one point, to be my favorite movie of all time, and that’s Gone With the Wind. I have countless books about the making of the film, two special edition DVDs, and a whole slew of other memorabilia. I feel a similar way about Gone With the Wind as I do about Titanic – it’s epic and melodramatic and revels in it. It’s beautiful and sweeping, from the costumes to the set to the unforgettable dialog. Gone With the Wind is an artistic masterpiece and watching it is an experience like no other.
Gone With the Wind is a complicated film and my relationship with it has changed a lot as I’ve gotten older. While it’s an obvious technical achievement in filmmaking, its depiction of its black character is incredibly racist and stereotypical. Considering the fact that a scary number of people in the U.S still proudly fly Confederate flags and still ascribe to the myth of the Old South and the Lost Cause, Gone With the Wind can be a dangerous film in the hands of people who have no intention of thinking about it critically.
But one of the reasons Gone With the Wind is such a fascinating watch is because of how it was made and when, not in spite of those things. In film critic Angelica Bastien’s honest, nuanced essay, “What are We to Do with the Cinematic Monuments to the Confederacy”, she argues that treating the film like a monument that should be torn down or a museum piece that should be locked away, allows us the privilege of not acknowledging America’s past, a past that has never really gone away. Bastien writes, “Better than any film, Gone With the Wind is a searing, accidental portrait about the American mythology around slavery.”
The best kinds of movies are the ones that can teach us about who we are, especially when who we are is not easy to stomach. But that’s why art is important. It’s made by people – people who are often flawed and wrong and difficult. The movies on this list all changed me in some way and made me think differently, made me look at life from a new perspective. For me, that’s what makes them the best.
8 is such a great choice!
Such a romatic top 10!