Tara Ison - Reeling Through Life - How I Learned to Live, Love and Die at the Movies

Will I have lived a life that makes me ready to meet death beautifully and finely?

Or will I fight to the last, try to barricade that door, claim every last second, last breath, last beat of my heart before it is the end of the thing that is me, and the thing that is me disappears forever?

I don’t know. I am writing, as all of us do, in the dark.

64 Love Story (Paramount Pictures, 1970): written by Erich Segal (screenplay first then, novel); directed by Arthur Hiller; with Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw

65 What’s Up, Doc? (Warner Bros., 1972): written by Buck Henry, David Newman, and Robert Benton, story by Peter Bogdanovich; directed by Peter Bogdanovich; with Ryan O’Neal and Barbra Streisand

66 Dark Victory (Warner Bros., 1939): screenplay by Casey Robinson, based on the play by George Emerson Brewer Jr. and Bertram Bloch; directed by Edmund Goulding; with Bette Davis, George Brent, and Geraldine Fitzgerald

67 Harold and Maude (Paramount Pictures, 1971): written by Colin Higgins; directed by Hal Ashby; with Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort

68“If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,” music and lyrics by Cat Stevens

69 Soylent Green (MGM, 1973); written by Stanley R. Greenberg, based on the novel by Harry Harrison; directed by Richard Fleischer; with Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson

70 All That Jazz (20th Century Fox, 1979): written by Robert Allen Aurthur and Bob Fosse; directed by Bob Fosse; with Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, and Ben Vereen

71Modified from “Bye, Bye Love,” by Boudleaux Bryant and Felice Bryant

72 Anne of the Thousand Days (Universal Pictures, 1969): screenplay by Bridget Boland, John Hale, and Richard Sokolove, based on the play by Maxwell Anderson; directed by Charles Jarrott; with Genevieve Bujold and Richard Burton

73 I Want to Live! (United Artists, 1958): screenplay by Nelson Gidding and Don Mankiewicz, based on articles by Ed Montgomery and letters by Barbara Graham; directed by Robert Wise; with Susan Hayward

74 In Cold Blood (Columbia Pictures, 1967): screenplay by Richard Brooks, based on the book by Truman Capote; directed by Richard Brooks; with Robert Blake and Scott Wilson

75 Dead Man Walking (Gramercy Pictures, 1995): screenplay by Tim Robbins, based on the book by Sister Helen Prejean; directed by Tim Robbins; with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn

76 The Green Mile (Warner Bros., 1999): screenplay by Frank Darabont, based on the novel by Stephen King; directed by Frank Darabont; with Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan

77 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (20th Century Fox, 1969): written by William Goldman; directed by George Roy Hill; with Robert Redford and Paul Newman

78 Thelma & Louise (MGM, 1991): written by Callie Khouri; directed by Ridley Scott; with Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis

79 Gallipoli (Village Roadshow/Paramount Pictures, 1981): screenplay by David Williamson, story by Peter Weir, based on the novel Tell England by Ernest Raymond and the book The Broken Years by Bill Gammage; directed by Peter Weir; with Mel Gibson and Mark Lee

80 Glory (TriStar Pictures, 1989): screenplay by Kevin Jarre, based on the books Lay This Laurel by Lincoln Kirstein and One Gallant Rush by Peter Burchard, and the letters of Robert Shaw; directed by Edward Zwick; with Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman

81 Saving Private Ryan (DreamWorks Pictures, 1998): written by Robert Rodat; directed by Steven Spielberg; with Tom Hanks and Adam Goldberg

82 Terms of Endearment (Paramount Pictures, 1983): written by James L. Brooks, based on the novel by Larry McMurtry; directed by James L. Brooks; with Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger

83 Million Dollar Baby (Warner Bros., 2004): written by Paul Haggis, based on stories from Rope Burns , by F. X. Toole; directed by Clint Eastwood; with Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood

84 The English Patient (Miramax Films, 1996): screenplay by Anthony Minghella, based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje; directed by Anthony Minghella; with Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, and Kristin Scott Thomas

SEDUCTIONS, TRYSTS, AND THE INEXORABLE TICKING CLOCK

The Graduate

Class

Notes on a Scandal

The Reader

Summer of ’42

My Tutor

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

The Last Picture Show

4 °Carats

White Palace

Something’s Gotta Give

How Stella Got Her Groove Back

Don Jon

Harold and Maude

Texasville

Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. . aren’t you. .?

Benjamin Braddock so famously says — accuses? hopes? — in The Graduate , having been lured from his college graduation celebration by the elegantly lupine, well-coiffed, and much-older Mrs. Robinson, who, indeed, is intent on seducing this feckless younger man. 85We glimpsed her earlier, at Benjamin’s parents’ house, her appraising Cleopatra eyes following him across the room, the predator tracking her prey; she has manipulated him into driving her home and by now has forced a glass of bourbon on him, put some groovy music on the hi-fi, tossed out an intimate question or two, and announced her husband will be home quite late . . She has this depressed and adrift young man exactly where she wants him, is batting the nervous mouse around in her well-manicured paws: “Well, no, I hadn’t really thought of that,” she responds coolly to his question, “I feel very flattered . .”, laughing as though oh-so-delighted this young man would even think she would even think of such an outrageous thing.

MRS. ROBINSON

Benjamin, you’ve known me all your life. .! I’m nearly twice as old as you are. .,

she protests disingenuously, as she disrobes down to a leopard-print demi-bra and slip — one more strategy to unnerve him, make him flustered and mortified and thus more malleable. And she is good, this Mrs. Robinson; when she finally flat-out confirms her intentions:

MRS. ROBINSON

Benjamin, I want you to know, I’m available to you. And if you won’t sleep with me this time, I want you to know you can call me up anytime and we’ll make some kind of arrangement . .,

Benjamin, terrified, flees the house — but he will soon nevertheless seek her out, unable to resist this magnificent older woman’s proposition.

And how could anyone resist the magnificent Anne Bancroft? At thirty-six, she was actually only six years older than Dustin Hoffman (who was playing twenty), but her mature, stylish sexuality is a glorious thing: See the poise with which she orders a martini in her leopard skin (again) coat, assures Benjamin in her butterscotch voice he needn’t be so nervous , snaps on the harsh overhead light when she enters the hotel room for their first rendezvous — this confident woman has no need of softening shadows — and suggests he watch while she gets undressed. Benjamin is a nervous wreck, but she is the epitome of seductive, in-control self-assurance. I love this Mrs. Robinson, all the electricity she brings to the screen; later, when Benjamin shifts his attentions to her plastic-pretty young daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross, beautiful, yes, but so neutral, so blank), Mrs. Robinson retreats to the background of the story, and she takes all the charged-up sexy fun with her.