These Days Everyone's A Critic - God and Satan's favorite motion pictures - Brief Article

Interview, Dec, 1999 by Graham Fuller

God's and the Devil's top ten movies

GOD'S TOP 10

At the end of each millennium, I cast my eye over everything that's been perpetrated in the name of art and make a top ten list. Since I'm the Lord of All Creation, I think it's fair to say every painting, sculpture, video installation, and movie is my work. I am, I suppose, the ultimate auteur. The downside is that I have to take responsibility for Dudley Do-Right as well as the frescoes on the Sistine Ceiling and Wild Wild West as well as Guernica. Suffice it to say, I'm not overly impressed with the cinema of the last forty years. I know you guys don't have the resources and unlimited budget I had when I made the earth in 6 days, but when I think of Kubrick taking 454 to make Eyes Wide Shut, it makes me weep.

While I'm whingeing, I should say I can't figure out why it took mankind so long to get from cave paintings to the Bayeux Tapestry (love that wide-screen effect) to the movies. I was contemplating giving Leonardo (da Vinci) the idea, but I was distracted by the Reformation. Even when you did figure out the persistence of vision (whoohoo!), it took darn near fifty years for something like Citizen Kane to get made. I take full credit for Orson's flick, of course, especially the deep-focus photography.

Now, in my capacity as a critic, I see everything--every humdrum short that comes out of Sundance, every studio clunker, every indie fiasco, every absurd sequel and remake, everything from Hollywood, Bollywood, and Tribeca. It can be exhausting given that I also have to ponder all the intergalactic wars (you don't want to know), pestilence, famine, global warming, universal morality, the Catholic League, the possibility of Al and Tipper in the White House (Warren Beatty won't run--you heard it here first) and keep track of my current 16,872 eBay bids. There's also my A.D. legacy to think about, so I'm focusing on cosmic policy right now. If Lord of the Rings goes over schedule, don't blame me.

And you should try being ubiquitous, which means you're in every actor's, actress's, and agent's bed simultaneously and all the time. Jaded? I was jaded two days after Eve gave Adam a bite. Mike Figgis's depiction of original sin in The Loss of Sexual Innocence was so icky, by the way, it made me cringe.

I guess I should throw in my five cents about Alanis Morissette playing moi in Dogma. Fine by me. I move, as you know, in mysterious ways, and I'm as likely to manifest myself as an angry Canadian pop singer masquerading as an omniscient hippie as I am as George Burns. As for the theological arguments in Dogma, I thought they were relevant, if longwinded. I didn't have any more of a problem with this pic than I did with The Last Temptation of Christ. I could have done without the Shit Monster, though.

And so to my first ever top ten movie list. Initially, I was going to include a lot of D.W. Griffith stuff with Lillian Gish, Monty Python's Life of Brian (watching the Magi ride into Bethlehem always makes me misty-eyed), and Ride With the Devil (a huge Jewel fan, I couldn't get past that title), but even I have to economize sometimes. Anyway, here goes. See you in a thousand.

1. Citizen Kane/ The Magnificent Ambersons

2. Stairway to Heaven (a.k.a. A Matter of Life and Death)

3. The Ten Commandments (The silent version, Heston got Moses all wrong.)

4. It's a Wonderful Life (I always watch it on my son's birthday.)

5. Bambi

6. The General/Duck Soup

7. Les Visiteurs du Soir

8. Time of the Gypsies

9. Wings of Desire (Loathed City of Angels and Michael.)

10. La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (That's my girl!)

11. Beat the Devil (One of Bogie's finest--it would have been a cliche to include Casablanca.)

12. Breaking the Waves (Best film of the '90s.)

So that's twelve--well, hey ....

THE DEVIL'S TOP 10

Josef yon Sternberg may have directed The Devil Is a Woman, but--despite the postfeminist backlash--I never wore heels and a dress. That's why De Niro, Pacino, Billy Crystal, Tim Curry, and Sting have all played me. Yeah, all very nice, but none of 'em got my essential diabolism right. (I can't wait for Jimmy Woods to have a crack at me.)

I'm not going to go on and on here like He or She (let's say He for brevity) did. The ultimate auteur? A tad hubristic, don't you think? And what does it matter if you're no longer box office? I worry though--He's so tight with Jack Valenti (sometimes I think He is Jack Valenti), which makes my job harder. Corrupting the young is a tough business these days--I'm tempted to give it all up and move to Florida. But as far as the movies go, everything's as well as could be expected--plenty of mindless violence, gratuitous sex, cheap thrills, human squalor, and anonymous, alienating hi-tech drivel. But what we need are less stories.

1. Greed or Inherit the Wind

2. Pink Flamingos

3. Natural Born Killers

4. Black Narcissus (It was so satisfying to put lipstick on a nun; having Sinbad play the Virgin Mary in The Butcher Boy was another of my masterstrokes.)

5. Blue Velvet or Bride of Chucky