Charlotte Pingress & Alice Kinnon – “The Last Days Of Disco” (1998)
One of the reasons to be excited about the upcoming “Love & Friendship,” aside from it being a new Whit Stillman film, and it being Whit Stillman adapting Jane Austen, is that it reteams Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny, who were such a memorable lead duo in what might be Stillman’s best film, “The Last Days Of Disco.” Set in the early 1980s, it sees Beckinsale’s Charlotte and Sevigny’s Alice, recent college grads, working in a publishing house together while living for their nights in a club still riding the disco boom. It’s a film with a broad scope —Stillman’s appropriation of the comedy of manners style feels here a touch less affected than it sometimes does in his oeuvre, thanks to the period setting and a wandering eye. But it finds its core in examining the friendship between the two women, a prickly, competitive one caused by necessity that eventually blossoms into outright enmity, after Charlotte spreads the news that Alice has an STD and reveals that she’s thwarted some of her romantic plans. While it might inspire fewer cinematic fireworks than some of the other examples listed here, ‘Last Days’ nevertheless an utterly truthful take on a kind of female friendship that’s very particular to a certain time of life, and one that helped to pave the way for “Girls” and Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig’s recent collaborations, among others.
Fred C. Dobbs, Bob Curtin & Howard – “The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre” (1948)
One of the oldest and most influential stories in the English language canon is “The Pardoner’s Tale” section of Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales,’ which regards three gamblers in Flanders who set out to kill Death to avenge the death of their friend, but end up finding a fortune in gold coins and then murder each other in an attempt to keep the lot for themselves. In other words, it’s the original friends turned enemies story. It’s been adapted both directly and indirectly, but never as memorably as in John Huston’s solid-gold classic “The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre.” Based also on B. Traven’s novel, the film sees Tim Holt’s Curtin, Humphrey Bogart’s Dobbs and John’s father Walter Huston as Howard, three drifters who head to Mexico in the hope of finding gold, only to lose trust in each other and to have their thoughts turn to murder. The ending is a little softer (Howard and Curtin survive, though without gold), but this film is otherwise tackling similar themes as Chaucer’s story, particularly with Bogart delivering such excellent villainy as Dobbs. It’s simply a wildly entertaining film, one of the most thrilling adventure films ever made, and a remarkable feat given that Huston hadn’t made a fiction film in six years, having joined the Army Signal Corps during the war.
Alex, Juliet & David – “Shallow Grave” (1994)
It’s a mark of how resilient a story “The Pardoner’s Tale” is that a film like “Shallow Grave” can look, sound and feel entirely different to “The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre,” and yet essentially can relate the same parable of greed and betrayal. The breakthrough movie for director Danny Boyle (and for writer John Hodge), it’s a darkly comic, frenetically energetic take on the story that sees journalist Alex (Ewan McGregor), doctor Juliet (Kerry Fox) and accountant David (Christopher Eccleston) take on an extra flatmate in their Edinburgh home, only for their new roomie (Keith Allen) to die of a heroin overdose with a bag full of cash in his room. The three decide to dispose of the corpse, but as various other figures close in on them, paranoia sets in with increasingly bloody consequences. It’s an old-school morality tale, but accomplished with such flair (both visually and, thanks to Hodge’s funny, almost Coen-ish script) and glee that it never feels preachy. The three leads are all terrific: there is a sense of a real albeit unlikely bond, which erodes swiftly once a fortune enters the picture. “Shallow Grave” was on a shoestring, yet it’s no surprise that at least half a dozen major careers were launched here.
Robert Ford & Jesse James – “The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford” (2007)
It’s perhaps a little bit of a stretch to call the relationship between the title characters in “The Assassination Of Jesse James” a friendship. It’s decidedly one-sided —James gives the impression he’s only faintly aware of the younger man, while Bob Ford is clearly deeply obsessed with James. But Andrew Dominik’s film, while in part concerned with the mythologization of the West, also serves as a fascinating portrait of two men who are embroiled in each other’s lives despite not quite knowing why. In the shape of Casey Affleck’s Oscar-nominated, career-peak performance, Ford is somewhere between fanboy idolization and hopeless crush when it comes to his outlaw hero (Brad Pitt), who treats him with a faint irritation (“Do you want to be like me, or do you want to be me?”), yet is clearly quietly flattered by the attention. In the end, Ford betrays James to save his own skin, and seemingly to avenge some semi-imagined slight. But it doesn’t bring him the same kind of infamy that his hero had — or it might, but he’s a pariah rather than an outlaw hero. It’s a testament to Dominik’s skill that a film with such an epic sweep feels in its focus on the two men so utterly intimate.
Obviously, there’s plenty more we could be discussing, such as the multiple versions of “The Count Of Monte Cristo,” action classic “Point Break” and its rip-off “Fast & The Furious,” Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon A Time In America,” comic classic “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” horror ‘The Black Cat,” Fincher’s “Fight Club,” crime pics “Casino” and “The Yards,” Bond pic “Goldeneye,” Brando Western “One-Eyed Jacks” and Brit pics “My Summer Of Love” and “Me Without You.” Any other notable films? Let us know in the comments.