A Tribute to Bill Weber aka The 25 Greatest Films

My #1 NYC film bud Bill Weber died last year and the I Love Everything forum (where I first met him under his Dr. Morbius screen name) paid tribute to him with a film poll. Voters chose 25 films from a list of nominees, a process I've never understood. Why not have everyone just vote and then tally from there? Astoundingly, though, my ancient top 10 list somehow appeared on the list. So that left 15 slots I used to honor Bill rather than Cinemah which delivered me from worrying about a particular title missing the top 100 or whether or not Twin Peaks: The Return is a film or a TV show. 

Bill was a film omnivore. The man would see damn near anything as long as tickets were cheap (apart from several sojourns to the NYFF) and it wasn't directed by Quentin Tarantino. We saw dozens of films together in the four years we shared oxygen in NYC: the preview print of The Ladies Man with ten minutes of must-see extra footage; the rare 130-minute version of Good Sam; still-undersung masterpieces like Laughter in Hell; becoming-sung masterpieces like The Mad Fox; a reel from Gregory Markopoulos' Eniainos; etc. But the screening I cherish the most is Surrender (Allan Dwan, 1950) which we saw in MOMA's Republic Rediscovered series, precisely because it was such a nothing film, perfectly serviceable but I couldn't tell you a damn thing about it beyond the fact that it kicked off a 48-hour obsession with Vera Hruba Ralston. It's a measure of Bill's determination to support even the least propitious aspects of NYC film culture and his energy will be sorely missed.

As for the poll, it was lots of fun. Kudos to Eric Henderson for all his hard work on it and for the gorgeously distressed screen grabs with Morbs silver and gold medals attached to the titles Bill loved the most. I'm glad 2001 won the poll. Bill adored the thing and even though I could never convince him that I did, in fact, dig it, I'm thankful he prodded me to finally see it on 70mm at MOMI. His beloved Mulholland Dr. hit high. Eric and I and a few others snuck in our beloved Showgirls, a subject of countless arguments with Bill. I learned about Contactos from the nominations list. It's one of the those rare films where you mutter, "well, goddamn, this is inventing a new cinema language," fitting for a film in which oppressed silence becomes a structuring principle. Bill loved Spielberg way more than I do. So I included A.I., his one unassailable masterpiece, to whatever extent it's a Spielberg film in the first place. 

The poll results (click the link halfway down the page to expand the entire thread) overall were perfectly honorable. Even the appearance of the one film I actively loathe (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) makes sense. The only remotely head-scratching entry was Jurassic Park which Bill hated. But I suppose it hit you hard if you were born in the mid-1980s with a JP Happy Meal awaiting you after the screening. I'd sit through it again if I could watch it with Bill.

 

1. Some Call It Loving (James B. Harris, 1973)

2. The Hart of London (Jack Chambers, 1969-1970)


3. Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959)


4. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)


5. Blow Job (Andy Warhol, 1964)


6. Thanatopsis (Ed Emshwiller, 1963) 


7. Submit To Me Now (Richard Kern, 1987)


8. Illusions (Julie Dash, 1980)

9. Angel Face (Otto Preminger, 1953)


10. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975)

11. The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis, 1961)
12. Contactos (Paulino Viota, 1970)
13. Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944)
14. The Palm Beach Story (Preston Sturges, 1942)
15. Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, 1995)
16. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
17. This Is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, 2011)
18. La région centrale (Michael Snow, 1967)  
19. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt, 2016)
20. 7 Women (John Ford, 1966)
21. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005)
22. Losing Ground (Kathleen Collins, 1982)
23. The 47 Ronin (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1941)
24. A Canterbury Tale (Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger, 1944)
25. Zorn's Lemma (Hollis Frampton, 1970)