The Bear Minimum

My wife and I just finished watching Once Upon a Time in the West and that immensely enjoyable experience has sparked us to take up a quest to re-watch the classics of cinema.

It has been many years since I last watched the film, many, many years, so I’d largely forgotten much of it, though I clearly remembered thinking it was fantastic. It happened to come up in conversation with my wife a few days ago, and now that she’s laid up for the next little while, we decided to put in some good hours with the old Blu-Ray player.

Earlier today, after my having spoken about this film, my wife asked me if I could grab it in town and tonight we watched it. She enjoyed it immensely as did I. We both agreed that the slow pacing of the film gave it a feeling of standing on a precipice, for the whole time, and not in some cheap way, but something that really keeps you interested in watching and paying attention.

After sitting through close to three hours of fantastically paced classic film, my wife and I have decided that we’re going to have to go and revisit many old and beloved movie classics over the next few weeks. One that my wife suggested, as it was one she remembered enjoying immensely the first time she saw it, was The Manchurian Candidate, and I concur, it was a very enjoyable film!

I suggested that we also watch North by Northwest and my wife loved the suggestion. She’s quite fond of many of the Hitchcock classics, as am I, and many more of that era. There’s something so immensely satisfying about those movies, some ineffable essence that does something to the viewer, it makes it more of a full meal than simply watching a movie.

Though we’ll not only be watching the classic, great films of that era, no we’ll also be re-watching those great films from all of the previous few decades. I myself am looking forward to watching Marathon Man again, whilst my wife is looking forward to Singin’ in the Rain. There’s so many to go through! Rear Window is another we’ve just added to our list. That was a fantastically intense watch the first time!