Your Favourite Performances from 1929 to present are...

[Bogie56]

Here are my choices of the 97 films I've seen from 1965 for…

 

Best Actor of 1965

 

1.  JAMES FOX (Flight Lieutenant Peter Marlowe, RAF), King Rat

2.  RICHARD BURTON (Alec Leamas/”Twait”/”Woolrich”), The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

3.  ORSON WELLES (Sir John “Jack” Falstaff), Chimes at Midnight

4.  GEORGE SEGAL (Corporal Fortnum King), King Rat

5.  SEAN CONNERY (Sgt. Major/Trooper Joe Roberts/”421”), The Hill

 

6.  OMAR SHARIF (Dr. Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago), Doctor Zhivago

7.  OSKAR WERNER (Dr. Wilhelm “Willi” Schumann), Ship of Fools

8.  LEE MARVIN (Kid Shelleen/Tim Strawn), Cat Ballou

9.  JAMES STEWART (Capt. Frank Towns), The Flight of the Phoenix

10. TERENCE STAMP (Freddie Clegg/”Gerald Franklin”), The Collector

 

and ...

 

RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH (Lew Moran), The Flight of the Phoenix

LAURENCE OLIVIER (Othello), Othello

FRANK FINLAY (Iago), Othello

MICHAEL CAINE (Sgt. Harry Palmer), The Ipcress File

STEVE MCQUEEN (Eric “the Kid” Stoner/“the Cincinnati Kid"), The Cincinnati Kid

JOHN WAYNE (Captain Rockwell “Rock” Torrey/Rear Admiral), In Harm’s Way

LOU CASTEL (Alesandro), Fist In His Pocket

SIDNEY POITIER (Allan Newell), The Slender Thread

KEITH BAXTER (Prince Hal/King Henry V), Chimes at Midnight

THE BEATLES/JOHN LENNON (John), PAUL MCCARTNEY (Paul), GEORGE HARRISON (George), RINGO             STARR (Ringo), Help!

MICHAEL PARKS (Bill Warren/"Fargo"), The Wild Seed

RICHARD WIDMARK (Captain Eric Finlander, USN), The Bedford Incident

ROBERT SHAW (Colonel Martin Hessler), Battle of the Bulge

JEAN SOREL (Gianni Wald-Luzzati), Sandra

[CoraSmith]

Cora, a few comments: I need to familiarize myself with Bourvil's work. I haven't heard of either film you listed, and I believe you may have listed him in the past, iirc.

 

I didn't know that about Ingrid Pitt. I naturally know her from her later vampire roles, and am a fan, so I'll have to seek her out next time I watch Zhivago!

 

And I love that you picked that Tom Jones song, one of two greats he had in films that year, along with "Thunderball".

Yes, those old French comedies don't have the international recognition. They were popular entertainment, and still good for a laugh. 

 

I have to admit that I only read somewhere about Ingrid Pitt having a quintuple role in "Zhivago". It's almost impossible to notice such a thing. Nobody pays attention to the extras...

[speedracer5]

The Great Race is a long, uneven parody that works only fitfully for me. Jack Lemmon drives me crazy with his over-the-top ham as Professor Fate.

 

On the positive side, however, Natalie Wood never looked lovelier, and the Prisoner of Zenda saber duel between Tony Curtis and Ross Martin (in which neither actor looks doubled) is beautifully choreographed.

 

But my favourite performance in the film is the only one that I nominated, Peter Falk as the Professor's dim witted but eager assistant in crime. Here's a brief "Hey Professor" tribute to that performance:

 

 

On a whole, I dislike The Great Race, mostly for the reasons you mentioned, its length and Jack Lemmon.  I really like Lemmon too, but I very much dislike his portrayal of Professor Fate.  It's obnoxious and annoying.  However, I really liked Natalie Wood in this film and I also thought that Tony Curtis was great too.  Their two characters kind of level out Jack Lemmon's character to make the film a little more tolerable, however, the contrast of their characters to Lemmon's also makes him seem even more obnoxious by comparison.  

 

Vivian Vance has a very small role in this film as a spectator, but I love her so I had to give her props.  

[kingrat]

Some random thoughts about 1965: I've already mentioned the British invasion theme and the prominence of B&W films. Another theme: groups of men in extreme situations: King Rat, The Hill, The Flight of the Phoenix. All three films have passed the test of time very well, with acute psychological insights into the way men interact under these unusual pressures.

 

The Hill has the great Oswald Morris as its cinematographer. Look at the opening of the film and the remarkable camera movements which introduce us to the physical and emotional set-up of the prison. Unfortunately, the credits are overlaid on this opening sequence. Morris also shot The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. 

 

Speaking of Spy, I think this is one of Richard Burton's best performances. Over the years he will turn out some just-treading-water historical performances and some gotta-pay-for Liz's-baubles-somehow movies, but it's a pleasure to watch when he's really working. Claire Bloom and Oskar Werner are perfectly cast, and this is one of Martin Ritt's best films.

 

Again speaking of Spy, I'm fascinated by the moment of time that gave us these thrillers in the same year: Mirage, Return from the Ashes, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, The Collector, Repulsion, Bunny Lake Is Missing. Mirage is a throwback to classic noir, with yet another version of the amnesia story directed by one of the classic noir directors, Edward Dmytryk. The quick fragmentary flashbacks are a new technique. Return from the Ashes gives noir a Euro setting and reverses the sexes, with Maximilian Schell as the femme fatale.

 

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold had been a huge best-seller, and both novel and film establish the paradigm for the new spy movie where "we" are seen to be almost as morally dubious as "they" are. The Collector establishes another genre, the story of the psycho who kidnaps a beautiful girl. This has become such a staple of movies and television that it's difficult to realize how little this motif was used in earlier films. Repulsion sets the paradigm for the arthouse thriller and arthouse horror movie.

 

Bunny Lake Is Missing, on the other hand, tells the kind of story which in the future will primarily belong to television detective shows.

[CoraSmith]

It's slightly off-topic, but because I haven't voted in the 1930s I decided to treat the whole decade as one year. Here are my votes for 1930-1939:

 

ACTOR

1. Charlie Chaplin - Modern Times

2. Clark Gable - Gone with the Wind

3. Stan Laurel - Sons of the Desert

4. Fred Astaire - Top Hat

5. James Stewart - Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

6. Peter Lorre - M

7. Groucho Marx - A Day at the Races

8. Cary Grant - Bringing Up Baby

9. Leslie Howard - The Scarlet Pimpernel

10. Errol Flynn - The Adventures of Robin Hood

 

ACTRESS

1. Vivien Leigh - Gone with the Wind

2. Greta Garbo - Anna Karenina

3. Paulette Goddard - Modern Times

4. Claudette Colbert - It Happened One Night

5. Katharine Hepburn - Bringing Up Baby

6. Ginger Rogers - Swing Time

7. Fay Wray - King Kong

8. Judy Garland - The Wizard of Oz

9. Jean Harlow - Riffraff

10. Ingrid Bergman - Intermezzo (1936)

 

SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. Basil Rathbone - Anna Karenina

2. Thomas Mitchell - Gone with the Wind

3. James Finlayson - Our Relations

4. Erich von Stroheim - La Grande Illusion

5. Frank Morgan - The Wizard of Oz

6. Edward Everett Horton - Top Hat

7. W. C. Fields - David Copperfield

8. Humphrey Bogart - Angels with Dirty Faces

 

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. Hattie McDaniel - Gone with the Wind

2. Dame May Whitty - The Lady Vanishes

3. Olivia de Havilland - Gone with the Wind

4. Olivia de Havilland - The Adventures of Robin Hood

5. Helen Broderick - Top Hat

6. Peggy Ashcroft - The 39 Steps

7. Billie Burke - The Wizard of Oz

8. Mae Clarke - Frankenstein

 

JUVENILE

1. Anne Shirley - Anne of Green Gables

2. Shirley Temple - The Little Princess

3. Cammie King Conlon - Gone with the Wind

 

And now back to 1965.

 

 

[Bogie56]

The BAFTA winners for 1965 were ….

 

Best Actor (British)

Dirk Bogarde, Darling*

Harry Andrews, The Hill

Michael Caine, The ipcress File

Rex Harrison, My Fair Lady (64)

 

Best Actor (Foreign)

Lee Marvin, Cat Ballou and The Killers (64)

Jack Lemmon, Good Neighbor Sam (64)

Innokently Smoktunovsky, Hamlet (64)

Jack Lemmon, How to Murder Your Wife

Oskar Werner, Ship of Fools

Anthony Quinn, Zorba the Greek (64)

 

Best Actress (British)

Julie Christie, Darling*

Julie Andrews, The Americanization of Emily

Rita Tushingham, The Knack and How to Get It

Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music

Maggie Smith, Young Cassidy

 

Best Actress (Foreign)

Patricia Neal, In Harm’s Way*

Simone Signoret, Ship of Fools

Lila Kedrova, Zorba the Greek (64)

[Bogie56]

Here are my choices of the 97 films I've seen from 1965 for…

 

Best Supporting Actor of 1965

 

1.  ROD STEIGER (Mr. Lafayette “Laff” Joyboy), The Loved One

 

 

"Two more came in ... One of them is an infant."

If you go with it, there seems nothing more brilliant than Steiger's Mr. Lafayette Joyboy, artiste extraordinaire.

 

[kingrat]

Beginning with some aspects of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and continuing to Downton Abbey Maggie Smith has primarily been known for campy comedy. Sometime after Brodie I saw her in Noel Coward's Private Lives on stage. Ideally, that play has matching stars in the lead roles which Coward and Gertrude Lawrence originally created. Maggie Smith simply inhaled her co-star, John Standing, the other two actors in the quadrangle, and some of the scenery as she turned the play into a showcase for her comic technique, which was formidable. The most memorable part of the evening was a bit of comic business when Maggie discovered something beside her on the couch, which turned out to be the purse of her rival, Sybil. Holding the purse as far away from her body as possible she hurried across the room to deposit it near Sybil. This was completely over the top, very funny, pretty much irrelevant to Coward's play, and magnificently executed.

 

This is not what one would have expected from seeing Maggie Smith as Desdemona, which suggested the presence of a great Shakespearean actress, or in Young Cassidy, where she plays a romantic role to perfection. With her red hair and flawless pale complexion, she looks very beautiful as the innocent young Irish girl, and ready to play romantic leads opposite the top actors of the day. Her career took a different path, and I can't help feeling some regret, despite the delights of her flair for comedy that made her one of our most beloved stars today.

[Bogie56]

Here are Danny Peary’s Alternate Oscar choices for 1965.  Winners in bold.  

 

Best Actor

Sean Connery, The Hill*

Ivan Dixon, Nothing But a Man

Laurence Olivier, Othello

 

Best Actress

Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music*

Julie Christie, Darling

 

 

And here are Michael Gerbert’s Golden Armchair choices for 1965:

 

Best Actor

Rod Steiger, The Pawnbroker (64) and The Loved One*

 

Best Actress

Barbara Harris, A Thousand Clowns*

[JamesStewartFan95]

Best Picture

Cat Ballou

Dr. Zhivago

The Flight of the Condor

The Loved One

A Patch of Blue

The Sound of Music

A Thousand Clowns

Von Ryan's Express

 

Best Director

Guy Green. A Patch of Blue

David Lean, Dr. Zhivago

Mark Robson. Von Ryan's Express

John Schlesinger, Darling

Robert Wise, The Sound of Music

 

Best Actor

Lee Marvin, Cat Ballou

Robert Morse, The Loved One

Christopher Plummer, The Sound of Music

Sidney Poitier, A Patch of Blue

Omar Sharif, Dr. Zhivago

 

​Best Actress

Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music

​Jane Fonda, Cat Ballou

Julie Christie, Dr. Zhivago

Elizabeth Hartman, A Patch of Blue

Natalie Wood, The Great Race

 

Best Supporting Actor

Tom Courtenay, Dr. Zhivago

Peter Falk, The Great Race

John Gielgud, The Loved One

​Richard Haydn, The Sound of Music

​Trevor Howard, Von Ryan's Express

 

Best Supporting Actress

​Charmian Carr, The Sound of Music

​Barbara Harris, A Thousand Clowns

Eleanor Parker, The Sound of Music

Shelley Winters, A Patch of Blue

Peggy Wood, The Sound of Music

[kingrat]

A little more about Young Cassidy, one of those messy movies which is still worth seeing. John Ford began directing it, and I believe there are two scenes of his left in the movie: 1) a bar fight which is like every other bar fight in a John Ford film and 2) the very moving death scene of Flora Robson. The rest was directed by Jack Cardiff, competently if not at the level of brilliance of his cinematography in so many films. One riot scene copies elements from Battleship Potemkin.

 

Young Cassidy is based on a memoir by Sean O'Casey. Apparently his family did Anglicize their name to Cassidy at one point, but it does seem strange to see "The Plough and the Stars by John Cassidy" on a theater marquee. Rod Taylor doesn't seem intellectual enough to play O'Casey, but he's certainly handsome and likable, and a better actor than I had once thought.

 

In addition to Maggie Smith before she became a star, the film also has Julie Christie before she became a star. Julie Christie is gorgeous with star quality for days, and it's unfortunate that she disappears so soon from the story. The cast includes Michael Redgrave as Yeats, Edith Evans as Lady Gregory, Flora Robson as O'Casey's mother, and Sian Phillips as the sister who is starving to death. Jack MacGowran, T.P. McKenna, and Donal Donnelly have small roles, too. I can enjoy the film just to see the actors at work.

[Bogie56]

The Golden Globe Awards for 1965 were …

 

Best Actor in a Drama

Omar Sharif, Doctor Zhivago*

Rod Steiger, The Pawnbroker (64)

Rex Harrison, The Agony and the Ecstasy

Sidney Poitier, A Patch of Blue

Oskar Werner, Ship of Fools

 

Best Actress in a Drama

Samantha Eggar, The Collector*

Julie Christie, Darling

Elizabeth Hartman, A Patch of Blue

Maggie Smith, Othello

Simone Signoret, Ship of Fools

 

Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical

Lee Marvin, Cat Ballou*

Jason Robards, A Thousand Clowns

Jerry Lewis, Boeing, Boeing

Jack Lemmon, The Great Race

Alberto Sordi, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

 

Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical

Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music*

Natalie Wood, Inside Daisy Clover

Barbara Harris, A Thousand Clowns

Jane Fonda, Cat Ballou

Rita Tushingham, The Knack… and How to Get It

 

Best Supporting Actor

Oskar Werner, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold*

Telly Savalas, Battle of the Bulge

Frank Finlay, Othello

Hardy Kruger, The Flight of the Phoenix (nomination refused)

Red Buttons, Harlow

 

Best Supporting Actress

Ruth Gordon, Inside Daisy Clover*

Joyce Redman, Othello

Peggy Wood, The Sound of Music

Joan Blondell, The Cincinnati Kid

Thelma Ritter, Boeing, Boeing

[LawrenceA]

The Golden Globe Awards for 1965 were …

 

Best Supporting Actor

 

Hardy Kruger, The Flight of the Phoenix (nomination refused)

 

I wonder what the story behind that was. I looked up Kruger on Wikipedia and IMDb and neither said anything about it.

[LawrenceA]

 

Specialty categories coming soon... (I'm trying to make breakfast!) 

 

Did you finish breakfast yet?

[Swithin]

A little more about Young Cassidy, one of those messy movies which is still worth seeing. John Ford began directing it, and I believe there are two scenes of his left in the movie: 1) a bar fight which is like every other bar fight in a John Ford film and 2) the very moving death scene of Flora Robson. The rest was directed by Jack Cardiff, competently if not at the level of brilliance of his cinematography in so many films. One riot scene copies elements from Battleship Potemkin.

 

Young Cassidy is based on a memoir by Sean O'Casey. Apparently his family did Anglicize their name to Cassidy at one point, but it does seem strange to see "The Plough and the Stars by John Cassidy" on a theater marquee. Rod Taylor doesn't seem intellectual enough to play O'Casey, but he's certainly handsome and likable, and a better actor than I had once thought.

 

In addition to Maggie Smith before she became a star, the film also has Julie Christie before she became a star. Julie Christie is gorgeous with star quality for days, and it's unfortunate that she disappears so soon from the story. The cast includes Michael Redgrave as Yeats, Edith Evans as Lady Gregory, Flora Robson as O'Casey's mother, and Sian Phillips as the sister who is starving to death. Jack MacGowran, T.P. McKenna, and Donal Donnelly have small roles, too. I can enjoy the film just to see the actors at work.

 

I agree with you 100%.  Btw, I saw a production of The Plough and the Stars at the National Theatre in London a couple of months ago. It was presented in commemoration of the centenary of the Easter Rising. Great production, and I can see why they rioted when the play premiered at the Abbey Theatre in 1926.

 

Interesting point, I think:  Almost all of the great Irish playwrights of the past were Protestants: Sheridan, Goldsmith, Farquhar, Boucicault, Wilde, Shaw, Synge, Yeats, Lady Gregory, O'Casey, Beckett. 

 

Here's an image from the recent production of The Plough and the Stars:

 

[speedracer5]

Did you finish breakfast yet?

Lol. Yes. Sorry. I got really busy on Saturday cleaning my house and running errands; Sunday I had company for football and then today I ended up working 2 hours past my shift--so I was tired. I'll try to get them posted before we move to 1966. Lol.

[Bogie56]

The 1965 Berlin International Film Festival winners were…

 

Best Actor

Lee Marvin, Cat Ballou

 

Best Actress

Madhur Jaffrey, Shakespeare Wallah

 

——————————————————————————————

 

The 1965 Cannes Film Festival winners were…

 

Best Actor

Terrence Stamp, The Collector

 

Best Actress

Samantha Eggar, The Collector

 

—————————————————————————————

 

The 1965 Venice Film Festival winners were:

 

Best Actors

Toshiro Mifune, Red Beard*

Valentin Popov, I am Twenty*

 

Best Actress

Annie Giradot, Three Rooms In Manhattan

[Bogie56]

**Announcement**

 

We are approaching the years which saw the rise of the television movie.  I would prefer that we stick to theatrically released films in this thread.  That said there are a few notable films that were initially intended for television that subsequently were released theatrically.  Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage (1973) comes to mind.  That film was nominated for Oscars and many other theatrical awards so I think it is fair game for us to include it.

Some other examples where I think it is fair to include as a theatrical feature: The Last Seduction (1994) which was released both on tv and in the theatres; Behind the Candelabra (2013) which premiered at the Cannes film festival and competed for BAFTA film awards though the imdb lists it as a TV mow.

This might develop into a big subject.  I don't know.  Perhaps we could take further discussion of this subject to kingrat's Lead or Supporting Role? thread.

There are a few Canadian films that I will be listing that the imdb incorrectly lists as a tv mow as they do not have the Canadian theatrical release information and the film was subsequently sold to American television.

[kingrat]

Darling hasn't aged well in some respects, but in other ways it has. We can't recapture the impact that Julie Christie had on audiences as a new star. Some had seen her in Billy Liar, but in 1965 Darling and Doctor Zhivago were big hits, and she became a star. I'll admit to being a big fan, but in some ways she was more a movie star than an actress, although, I think, a capable actress within a relatively narrow range of roles.

 

One of the more remarkable aspects of Darling is that it is the first movie, as far as I can tell, that has 21st century views of homosexuality. We're about as far as possible from The Children's Hour (1963) where a character feels impelled to commit suicide when she recognizes romantic feelings for her female friend. In Darling homosexuality isn't a problem, it's just a fact of life, and that's exactly what John Schlesinger intended. When the model's gay friend goes off for a date with a handsome Italian waiter, we're pleased for him. That makes it easier for me to overlook some of the less than subtle moments in the film (e.g., when the model's face replaces a story about famine on a bank of magazine covers).

 

I also think that everything in the film related to Dirk Bogarde's character is a complete success. This film producer, rather smug with his success, has an affair with the beautiful new model mainly because he can, and then falls desperately in love with her. After all, it's Julie Christie, for whom many a man would have destroyed his marriage, given the chance. The portrayal of adultery is actually more powerful by not showing the full effect of the adultery on the wife and child; what happens to the man himself is devastating enough. Bogarde's performance is great, probably his best, and I would gladly have given him top acting honors if it hadn't been for the larger role played by James Fox in King Rat.

[LawrenceA]

I agree on Julie Christie being an actress of limited range at this stage of her career. I still thought she was good, as I nominated her a couple of time, but she did grow in ability, and a few of her late career performances are very good, I think, such as Afterglow (1997) and Away from Her (2007).

[CoraSmith]

One thing that made Julie Christie's Lara Antipova an iconic role was the way David Lean captured her. He put extra focus on her bright blue eyes - like three years earlier with Peter O'Toole - by putting shadow on her mouth and forehead. 

[Bogie56]

  The 1965 San Sebastian Film Festival winners were…

 

Best Actor

Marcello Mastroianni, Casanova 70

 

Best Actress

Lilli Palmer, Operation Crossbow

 

——————————————————————————————

 

The 1965 Moscow International Film Festival winners were …

 

Best Actor

Sergo Zakariadze, Father of a Soldier

 

Best Actress

Sophia Loren, Marriage Italian Style (64)

[Swithin]

I agree on Julie Christie being an actress of limited range at this stage of her career. I still thought she was good, as I nominated her a couple of time, but she did grow in ability, and a few of her late career performances are very good, I think, such as Afterglow (1997) and Away from Her (2007).

 

She was indeed excellent in Away from Her. i've always felt she was beautiful but wrong for Far from the Madding Crowd. She looked way to modern for that role. I did see her on stage in Pinter's Old Times -- she was very good.

[Bogie56]

Here are some performances from 1965 that will be recognized in subsequent years …

 

Ida Kaminska will be nominated for the Best Actress Oscar in 1966 for The Shop on Main Street (1965).  She will also be nominated for the 1966 Golden Globe Best Actress Award.

 

Sylvie will win the National Society of Film Critics Best Actress Award in 1966 for The Shameless Old Lady (1965).

 

Laurence Olivier will be nominated for the National Society of Film Critics Best Actor Award in 1966 for Othello (1965).

 

Richard Burton will win the BAFTA Best Actor Award in 1966 for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965). 

 

Ralph Richardson will be nominated for the BAFTA Best Actor Award in 1966 for Doctor Zhivago (1965) and Khartoum and The Wrong Box.

 

Sidney Poitier will be nominated for the BAFTA Best Foreign Actor Award in 1966 for A Patch of Blue (1965).

 

Jean-Paul Belmondo will be nominated for the BAFTA Best Foreign Actor Award in 1966 for Pierret le Fou (1965).

 

Oskar Werner will be nominated for the BAFTA Best Foreign Actor Award in 1966 for The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965).

 

Orson Welles will be nominated for the BAFTA Best Foreign Actor Award in 1967 for Chimes at Midnight (1965).

 

Julie Christie will be nominated for the BAFTA Best Actress Award in 1965 for Fahrenheit 451 and Darling (1965).

 

Jeanne Moreau will win and Brigitte Bardot will be nominated for the BAFTA Best Foreign Actress Award in 1966 for Viva Maria! (1965).

 

Natalya Arinbasarova will win the Venice Film Festival Best Actress Award in 1966 for The First Teacher/Pervyy Uchitel (1965).

 

Paola Pitagora will be nominated for the National Society of Film Critics Best Supporting Actress Award in 1968 for Fists In the Pocket (1965).

 

Julie Christie will win Italy’s David di Donatello Best Foreign Actress Award in 1967 for Doctor Zhivago (1965).

 

Frank Finlay will win the San Sebastian Film Festival Best Actor Award in 1966 for Othello (1965).

[skimpole]

I'd like to talk about The Brick and the Mirror, my runner-up supporting actress nominee.  It's one of the first classics of Iranian cinema.  It deserves more information, especially since there isn't a Wikipedia entry.  You can see it on youtube here: 

The movie is an example of neorealism, with a conceit worthy of De Sica himself:  a cab driver takes a female fear and he later realizes that she has left behind a baby.  It's one of Jonathan Rosenbaum top 1000 movies (which is how I heard of it)

 

 

 

 

Here is more  from a 2008 post from the Film is love blog:

 

I expect that my experiences with Iranian cinema have generally conformed to those of my fellow arthouse junkies. That is to say, I'm familiar with (and incidentally, a huge admirer of) the films of Abbas Kiarostami, and adequately acquainted with his New Wave contemporaries. Still, as far as I was concerned, the birth of the country's film industry coincided with its emergence onto the international festival scene during the 1990s.

Imagine my surprise then, when I had the opportunity to acquire a pre-revolutionary film from 1965. Was this to say that Iranian cinema existed before Kiarostami? Before even Dariush Mehrjui's The Cow (1969) - widely credited with kickstarting the New Wave? A chance to outperform my comrades in the obscurity stakes is not a temptation that someone like myself can humanly resist, so naturally I snapped up the oddity - entitled Brick and Mirror - without a moment's hesitation, despite knowing approximately zero about either film or filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan.

Cinema, in both its breadth and its depth, is a beast that will forever remain unfathomable to the 21st century enthusiast. Who knows just how many masterworks are currently lost in the annals of oblivion? How is it possible for even the most ardent devotee to comprehend the real gravity of everything that's preceded them? With over a century of history and a reach that's close to globe-spanning, this is a medium doesn't make life easy for its followers. Yet for all its innate futility, the disciple's mission is not one that's without its rewards. As a (budding) cinephile myself, I can claim with fair certainty that there are few greater (intellectual) pleasures than the joy of cinematic discovery.

It's that sensation, that adrenaline rush, that abstract high that coursed through my veins during Brick and Mirror. Perhaps the element of surprise affected my judgment - in the Internet age where hype is impossible to escape (not necessarily a bad thing, but undeniably tiresome on occasion), it feels liberating to enter into a filmic contract without any expectations. Even so, upon further reflection and post-viewing scrutiny, I find myself arriving at the same conclusion that I formed immediately after film’s end: this is remarkable, essential filmmaking, which deserves far greater recognition than that which can be provided by a critical flyweight like me.

Brick and Mirror offers us two leads: a taxi driver and his on/off lover. One night, after giving a cab ride to a mysterious woman, the former discovers a baby in the back of his car. Cue an episodic 24hr journey through a cross-section of Iran's urbania, where everyone he turns to - from bohemians and tramps to doctors and lawyers - stumbles in their attempts to find a feasible solution to his problem. Only with the appearance of his smart and worldly lover is he able to discover some sort of tentative peace. The couple's brief moments of harmony reveal their potential to forge a makeshift family with the abandoned child. But to do so would require a commitment that might be beyond their capabilities as struggling, blue-collar citizens who value their individualism. In essence, the baby is a catalyst for self-discovery. The real journey here is into their respective consciences, and it's one that doesn't necessarily provide comforting results.

It's easy to see how Brick and Mirror could have influenced the New Wave features that followed in its wake. Golestan is a socially-conscious filmmaker, whose neo-neorealist direction creates a compelling discord against the more metaphysically-inclined analyses upheld by his screenplay. From a contemporary Western perspective, his approach to Brick's subjects grounds the film in an authenticity that invites the viewer's interest on a secondary level as historical document. With the lines between narrative and reality often blurred, Golestan's observational record of moral degeneration, spiritual stagnation and financial deprivation retains its ability to surprise and unnerve. We never get the sense that we're watching characters here - these are real human beings, facing up to the difficulties of everyday life in Tehran. It's these attributes that lend such credence to the work of many of Iran's later, more acclaimed directors.

This is not to say that Golestan is without his stylistic flourishes, nor should one assume that the film is simply a record of poverty and hardship. Brick and Mirror's opening sequence takes place inside our protagonist's taxi as he slowly makes his way through the neon nightscapes of modern Tehran. (One wonders if Martin Scorsese had come across this prior to the making of a certain classic from 1976...) Soon afterwards, the film takes a sharp left turn into the world of expressionistic mysticism during an encounter in a dilapidated house. And Golestan, free from cinematic conventions as we know them, liberally alternates between handheld camerawork and static long-takes, whilst frequently defying the 180 degree rule that's such a staple of continuity editing. Meanwhile, his journey into the night takes the audience into a vibrant café where alcohol flows freely, where women can dance in Western attire, and where (presumably) homosexual men exist as equals. Needless to say, this is worlds removed from the portrait of Iranian life that many of us have become accustomed to in recent years.

Indeed, the film's strongest presence is the female lover who, at one point, struts around like a sex kitten in her undergarments. Golestan maintains too much distance to venerate any of his characters, but he clearly values the forthright emotional honesty of the woman over the commitmentphobic, responsibility-shunning man. Nevertheless, the director takes pains to portray his character's malaise as symptomatic of a much wider condition plaguing masculinity during the era. Brick and Mirror reverberates on an allegorical plane, as a cinematic treatise on the resounding failure of government and establishment to provide for their people. A prolonged discussion between a police chief and a doctor exposes the exasperation and anger that even respected pillars of the community feel towards their society. Yet neither feels the need to act upon it. This is a trait that one finds in all of the film's men: there is much talk, but when it comes to genuine action, they wilt.

An external, presumably malevolent spectre instills a paranoia that no doubt affects their mindsets - an ominous radio plays underscores the aforementioned opening sequence by discussing "anguish", "fear" and the "thousand-eye perils"; and our protagonist spends a lengthy amount of time worrying about the judgments of his unseen neighbours after taking lover and child home for the night. The nature of this implacable fear is never quite clear to us, though its enfeebling effect upon his mentality (and, consequently, his decison-making process) is painfully apparent. Against this context, the film's most significant female characters morph into beacons of strength, better-equipped to tackle social problems than their male counterparts.

For all his feminist tendencies and institutional critiques however, it appears that Golestan is first and foremost a humanist. He remains forever attuned to the intimate dramas that define his emotional content. In this director's view, both personal and political are as fundamental as one another, and Brick and Mirror is at its core a desperate plea for the reconciliation of these increasingly divergent modes of thought. His film reaches its absolute zenith by achieving just that during the unforgettable finale at an orphanage. Actualizing his promise as a documentarian, Golestan dispenses with his narrative trajectory altogether and instead focuses in on the faces and bodies of Iran's forgotten children. His seamless montage confronts the viewer with the uninhibited joy and purity of blameless innocents. Their figurative weight is astounding, demanding a call to action. How can we live with ourselves if the world inherited by the next generation is one that's in complete disarray? And yet, damningly, it turns out that our two leads can do just that. The film ends ironically: another taxi ride intimating technological progression despite the abiding feeling of moral immobility.

Brick and Mirror undoubtedly appears even more striking today when one notes Iran's path through history since 1965. Bear in mind that I was subjected to an abysmal copy of the film, that required the utmost concentration even to make out the characters. It was worth it. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the most sexually frank and overtly polemic Iranian film ever made (not that it's particularly indulgent in either category). But what do I know? If a film as accomplished as Brick and Mirror can remain neglected for so long, then who's to say that there aren't other, more critical, more damning and daring Iranian masterworks out there waiting for reappraisal? And why stop at Iran? How much cinema have we, even in the West, supposedly lost to the hands of time and misguided distributors? As cinephiles, we spend so much time adhering to the canon and listening to what other, apparently more distinguished critics have to tell us. How else have Citizen Kane and La règle du jeu - both superb films - retained their virtual monopoly at the top of Sight & Sound's Top Ten lists for the last half-century? It's too easy to think "the buck stops here" when it comes to this most infinitely rewarding of art forms. It doesn't. There is no objective truth in so subjective a medium, so why place limitations on the potential gifts that it can bestow upon us? Granted, accessibility is an issue - though it shouldn't prevent us from searching, from seeking, from fighting. I realize that Brick and Mirror could have been a stinking mountain of dog ****. But isn't this a chance that we have to take? Perhaps I feel too great a sense of duty here. Perhaps one should exercise some restraint with one's devotion. I don't know. I guess I just love adventures. And thanks to this one, I hope that at least a few more individuals will be aware of Brick and Mirror's existence.