Sean Price Williams’ book “1000 Movies”: 13 hidden gems

It’s fair to say that Sean Price Williams, director of last year’s film “The sweet Orient“and director of photography on everything from the Safdies”Good time» to Kristen Stewart’s Boygenius music videos, has an eclectic and appreciative eye for great films. He’s perfected it through his job, of course, but also by compiling a massive list of movies to watch. What began as a list of recommendations, constantly evolving over the years and distributed to Williams’ friends and colleagues, is now a full-fledged book by Métrographe Editions.

To butcher a quote from Ernst Lubitsch, there are a thousand “1000 Movies to Watch” type books, but now there is only one.

What’s interesting about this pocket-sized guide is that, unlike many movie recommendation books, Williams isn’t interested in leading the reader through flowery explanations of why someone might or should like a particular movie. Titles are presented, along with year of release and director, in simple list form, with ample space in the margins for notes, checkmarks, or whatever sticker system an individual reader might wish to implement . It’s an impeccable guide that begs you not to continue like this.

Knowing that the first print run of “1000 Films” is already sold out (don’t worry, Metrograph prints more), we thought we should highlight at least some of Williams’ choices. And really, the only way that seems right to do that is to follow Williams’ own advice to readers as closely as an Internet entertainment publication can: “Get your blood on it.” Whatever it is, just engage physically. Because otherwise you just have tabs open on your computer,” Williams said.

So, below is a list of 13 arbitrarily chosen films before 1970. They represent directors that Williams returns to again and again, they include artistic ancestors of the Dragon’s Horde incredible films from the 70s, 80s and 90s that make up a healthy plurality of Williams’ list, they are particularly interesting for the way they push what is possible with cinematic imagery, and also ? These are precisely the ones that this writer really likes. This article contains as much information on each of them as the corresponding page of “1000 films”. We hope this will preserve Williams’ and the book’s appreciation for the reference manuals and movie video store catalogs that served as portals to discovery beneath a minimalist exterior.

The additional limitation I have imposed on myself is to not mention any movies that appear in some of the best places to have tabs open for movie recommendations: Ebert’s great films list; or films which are, at the time of writing, on the unofficial Letterboxd site Official Top 250 by rating. Some of these titles have Criterion releases – the entities that keep films alive physical medium are, after all, few in number – but many of them are not. However, they are all visible either way. So now you have no more excuses! Go watch great films that are secret favorites of filmmakers and movie buffs.