| The 10 Essential Fantasy Films
|
 |
 | By
Al Weisel
CDNOW Senior Editor, Movies
The earliest precursors to film were "magic lantern" shows
where magicians used light and shadows to tell stories. One of
the earliest filmmakers, Georges Méliès, actually started out
as a magician. While his contemporaries, the Lumière brothers,
tried to record the world with their cameras, Méliès created
worlds that didn't exist (see Landmarks
of Early Film and Landmarks
of Early Films 2: Magic of Méliès). The worlds found
in fantasy films exist only onscreen and in the imagination.
Often using elaborate special effects, costumes, and sets, the
worlds in fantasy films can look as real as the world
offscreen. Computer-aided imagery has allowed filmmakers to
create more and more sophisticated fantasy worlds. A good
fantasy film, however, does not just rely on visual trickery
to convince us that the world it depicts is real. It also must
have fully realized characters that we care about, just like
films set in the real world. The films below are not only
wondrous to look at, they also touch us emotionally.
| |
| 1. Lord of the Rings
(2001) |
 J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels took
fantasy literature to a new level and Peter Jackson's film
version does the same for cinematic fantasy. Tolkien's fully
imagined world is breathtakingly re-created onscreen. Although
technology has allowed Jackson to accomplish things that would
have been impossible only a few years ago, the films are not
just visually spectacular. They are also literate and
beautifully acted, ensuring that the novels don't lose any of
their atmosphere or sense of wonder.
|
|
| |
|
| 2. Wizard of Oz (1939) |
 Because of its repeated showings on television, this
film has been for many of us our first introduction to the
wonders of the cinematic imagination. When Dorothy first opens
the door to her house after the tornado and her
black-and-white world bursts into Technicolor, a door opened
in many of our imaginations as well. Its witches, munchkins,
and flying monkeys haunted our dreams -- and nightmares. And
while Dorothy may have longed to leave Emerald City to return
to Kansas, many of us wanted to stay.
|
|
| |
| 3. Beauty and the Beast
(1946) |
 Jean Cocteau's version of the classic fairy tale,
which was remade into one of Disney's best cartoons (Beauty
and the Beast), is one of the most beautiful films
ever made. It is a fever dream of astounding imagination where
candelabra are mounted on living hands and the eyes of statues
move, all rendered without the help of digital trickery. It's
all so seductive that when the beast turns into a handsome
prince, you will feel as disappointed as Greta Garbo, who is
reputed to have said, "Give me back my beast."
|
|
| |
|
| 4. Wings of Desire (1987) |
 Berlin, before the wall came down, never looked so
beautiful as it does in Wim Wenders' tribute to this city,
where angels swoop down from the Victory Column to eavesdrop
on the deepest thoughts the city's inhabitants. But while the
angels can hear everything people are thinking, they can only
see in black and white. When one angel falls in love with a
trapeze artist he gives up his wings for her -- and the world
suddenly bursts into radiant color.
|
|
| |
| 5. It's a Wonderful Life
(1946) |
 An
angel also figures in this beloved but critically underrated
Frank Capra fantasy, which is one of the greatest American
films ever made. When George (Jimmy Stewart) decides to kill
himself, an angel gives him a chance to see what the world
would have been like if he had never been born. From this
simple idea Capra shows how the conflict between the American
Dream and American reality leads many to live what Henry David
Thoreau called "lives of quiet desperation." Capra also
directed Lost
Horizon, a fantasy about a magical Himalayan kingdom
called Shangri-la that was one of the most expensive -- and
beautiful -- films of its day.
|
|
| |
|
| 6. Black Orpheus (1959) |
 The Greek myth of Orpheus, the poet who descends into
Hell to retrieve his love Eurydice, inspired Jean Cocteau's
great surrealist film Orpheus
as well as this Marcel Camus film set during Carnaval in Rio
de Janeiro. In this version Orpheus is a singer (whose music
is written by bossa nova legends Luis Bonfa, Antonio Carlos
Jobim, and Vinicius De Moraes) and Hell is a Macumba ceremony.
Pulsating with samba rhythms, overflowing with colorful
costumes and breathtaking views of Rio, the film is a feast
for the eyes and ears.
|
|
| |
| 7. Brazil (1985) |
 Terry Gilliam's film has nothing to do with Brazil,
except as an unattainable idea in a pop song. Set in a
retro-futuristic 1984-like world, the film is a darkly
comic look at a totalitarian society. Every bit of the screen
is filled with imagination, which is not surprising since the
former Monty Python member is also responsible for such
fantasy extravaganzas as Time
Bandits, The
Fisher King, and The
Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
|
|
| |
|
| 8. Red Shoes (1948) |
 The producing, writing, and directing team of Michael
Powell and Emeric Pressburger were responsible for some of
cinema's greatest fantasy films from Thief
of Bagdad to Tales
of Hoffman to A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway
to Heaven), but The Red Shoes is their masterpiece.
Based on Hans Christian Anderson's story and filmed in
gorgeous Technicolor, it tells the story of a ballet dancer
who is forced to choose between her art and love. The
surrealistic 15-minute Red Shoes ballet is still the
greatest dance sequence ever put on film.
|
|
| |
| 9. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
(1971) |
 This deliciously cynical film about a magical world
contained in the walls of a chocolate factory run by the
megalomaniacal Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) was for post-baby
boomers what The Wizard of Oz was for boomers. With its
chocolate rivers, orange-faced, green-haired oompa-loompas,
and exploding candies, the chocolate factory is a wonderland
that proves especially dangerous to bad little children. Like
the Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka has become more
and more popular as the years go on, especially for Wilder's
manic, over-the-top performance as the non-sequitur-spouting
master of ceremonies.
|
|
| |
|
| 10. Edward Scissorhands
(1990) |
 Director Tim Burton is perhaps American film's best
living fantasist. His idiosyncratic world, sketched in such
films as Pee-wee's
Big Adventure, Nightmare
Before Christmas, Beetlejuice,
and Batman,
has a touch of gothic horror. Horror icon Vincent Price even
makes a cameo in Edward Scissorhands, an imaginative
fable about a naïve innocent (played by Johnny Depp) who has
one feature that sets him apart from other boys -- his hands
are scissors.
|
|
| | |
