What are the best art movies of all time?

   There’s no shortage of postings on the ‘Net of the best arthouse movies, but when I take a look at some of the titles listed I confess a certain dismay, not unlike my incredulity when I heard Bob Dylan had won the Nobel Prize for literature. The Truman Show? Mulholland Drive? Really?! It’s not only a matter of taste, but one of definition. For example, the estimable Wikipedia chimes in with:

   “ … an art film (or art house film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market, rather than a mass market audience. It is intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal, made primarily for aesthetic reasons rather than commercial profit, and contains unconventional or highly symbolic content."

   Long winded as this definition may be, I more or less agree. My only dissent is with the notion that an art movie is the same as an arthouse movie. Perhaps the confusion, at least in my own mind, is in the term ‘arthouse’ and its resemblance to the term ‘grindhouse’. Since grindhouse theaters have largely passed into history, perhaps the comparison is not apropos. Still, the similarities beyond just the terms themselves are noteworthy: both arthouse theaters and grindhouse theaters are/were frequently located in a marginal part of town; the repertoire is offbeat, experimental, subversive; the clientele is loyal and small; the building that houses the theater is frequently vintage and in disrepair. There was also, to some extent, a conflation of the type of content screened: some arthouse cinemas played grindhouse material, and vice versa [1].

   The venerable OED follows the same drift in its definition as it offers a pithy: “a film that is artistic or experimental in its primary intent.” I rather like their uncharacteristic brevity, as it gets closer to the crux of the matter. Of course we could go full contrarian and point out that any number of commercial films made today and in the past sprang from intentions that were, at least in part, artistic or experimental. Be that as it may, by some definitions an art-/grind-house movie could be anything from Herschel Gordon Lewis to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, from Ed Wood to Val Lewton to blacksploitation to film noir, all of which have their respective … merits, but in many cases fail miserably in the test of a true art film. By example, any number of horror films, from the early Thirties to the present, have arresting visuals, but does that make them art movies?

   In present writer’s opinion, no, a horror film, however visually striking, is not automatically an art film. Yes, an art movie has to look (and sound) beautiful. But there are other qualities, especially mood and atmosphere, along with a certain, frequently Euro, je ne sais quoi. But it’s mostly the visual element that makes said films arty. (As intimated above, a great music score adds immensely, thus the case for Death in Venice).

   But for our rather arbitrary definition here, for something to be an art movie it first and foremost has to stand on its own merits as a work of art: to be a great art movie a film has to be at minimum just plain beautiful to look at. It’s no coincidence then that the subject matter of some of the best art movies is art itself. And, for better or worse, worse I think, the scripts of these films often include ponderous ruminations of the nature of art, the artist, and the place of both in the scheme of things. One might add, controversially perhaps, that not all art movies are great movies, even good movies, and conversely not all great movies qualify as art movies. However, all (or most) great art movies are also great movies. Perfectly clear?

   Thus, following the format of my post on cinema’s greatest geniuses, I offer my choices of the ten best art movies ever, in chronological order, with an honorable mention section of honorable also-rans. Most of the top tier choices won’t be shockers though a couple may raise eyebrows [2]. Perhaps unfairly, this listing includes only dramatic, i.e. feature, films, not documentaries, though in some cases – experimental and animated films especially – the line gets blurred on what’s a feature versus a documentary. So, drumroll please: 

   Salome (Nazimova version)
   Orphée
   The Red Shoes
   Moulin Rouge (1952)
   Lola Montès
   Vertigo
   Last Year at Marienbad
   Juliet of the Spirits
   Death in Venice
   Frida, Naturaleza Viva

   Honorable mention: The Seventh Seal, All That Heaven Allows, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Cries and Whispers, Meshes of the Afternoon, La Belle et la Bête, Black Narcissus, Suspiria, Snow White, Fantasia, I Walked with a Zombie, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Tokyo Story, Diva, Beauty of the Devil, Blancanieves, Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne, Tiefland, Le Notti Bianche, Loving Vincent, Daughter of Horror/Dementia

   [1] David Church, “From Exhibition to Genre: The Case of Grind-House Films,” Cinema Journal, v50 n4 (Summer 2011), 16-17.
   [2] For example Huston’s Moulin Rouge is included in the top ten even though it’s a mass marketed industrial product typical of its era. In this case I made an exception because the film has such an ‘arty’ flavor and it (mostly) puts Toulouse-Lautrec’s work and not his life front and center. Similarly Fellini-ophiles will scratch their heads and wonder, why Juliet and not Dolce Vita, or 8 1/2? Much as Dolce Vita is my favorite Fellini movie, for me Juliet is more visually arresting, and (this doesn’t hurt) has a more offbeat story line.
    And where, pray tell, is Orson Welles? I’m a great admirer of Welles, but it seems that all his movies, the best ones anyway, even Kane, for all their technical razzle dazzle and various other Wellesian touches,* have a (more or less) conventional storyline and Hollywood-like patina (whether made in Hollywood or not) that places them outside the realm of a true art film. Incidentally Kane is often listed as one of the great arthouse films, and here I totally concur.   
   Obviously there’s some inconsistency in my selections: some of the films chosen have a traditional storyline along with an undeniable Hollywood pedigree, and moreover did well commercially. Still, my judgment was that they had sufficient arty flavor to eke out inclusion. In any case, one of the luxuries afforded a film buff in compiling such a list is that commercial success – or lack of it – is not a factor.

     * The Lady from Shanghai is arguably Welles’s most arty film, though Mr. Arkadin ranks a close second. But even with its baroque camera angles, flitty plot and surrealistic montages, Lady fits comfortably into the noir canon as a fairly typical example. By the way not even one classic noir springs to mind as being a bonafide art film: for all their stylish visuals, noirs are driven by other factors – story, character, setting – that place them outside the art movie universe.