Back in 2014 I started an epic journey of watching a list of the most memorable movies in history:
1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
I decided to watch all these films in chronological order starting from the very beginning with A Trip to the Moon, in 1902, and working my way forward to the modern day (Note: the latest year on the list I’m working off of is 2012)
I did this in order to get the proper film history education that I didn't get in film school. I realized through this process that watching a film in it's own period of time, after seeing everything that came before it and everything that was being released in the same decade, provides a whole lot more context and understanding for why certain films were as influential as they were at the time they were released and also whether or not historical revisionism has made certain films to be far greater than they really were for the time. There's a lot that is lost in just analyzing films outside of their historical context. You can see clearly whether or not a filmmaker was making decisions purely for commercial success in an era where audiences had particular political or sociological demands and also how an era's culture affected what kinds of films were made.
For example, in the Great Depression escapist films were a morale boost for audiences so distraught by the financial pressures of the day that making them didn’t seem cheesy, cheap or superficial at the time but rather uplifting and a means to help ordinary people get out of their personal depression. During and after World War 2, films started to feature anti-heroes, questioning our morality as humans, something that would have been struck down by the Hays Code of the 1930's but was openly embraced by audiences of the 1940’s whose own personal moral compasses were bent significantly. In the 1960's films were made often merely to break down established rules of filmmaking convention as a means of advancing political and social revolutionary goals in challenging the established order of things. So some of the innovations in editing, non-linear script writing, jump cuts, handheld camera movement and such were products of a political desire of the day to bend the art rather than just a purely artistic discovery.
It was only through watching these films in order that I truly came to understand how certain movies that are part of our zeitgeist can be completely misunderstood or better understood when viewed amongst their peer films.
I've taken notes on all the films I've seen throughout this process and am finally putting my thoughts out to the public.
If you are interested in getting a copy of the book you can purchase the latest version here:
If you are interested in just seeing the list, the last updated version is here:
http://1001films.wikia.com/wiki/The_List
And if you are interested in keeping track yourself you can visit this site:
https://www.icheckmovies.com/lists/1001+movies+you+must+see+before+you+die+all+editions/joachimt/