Losing My Virginity - Top 5 Experiences with New Cinema

I have not always been the grizzled old man you see before you today. Once I was young and fresh and unspoiled, schooled only in the ways of innocent black and white television and Disney films, barely cognizant of the occasional PG-rated temptations to which I snuck away with my elders. Then I got my driver's license, an old car, and a minimum wage clerk's job that made possible a new world of cinematic sin.

But enough about sex on film. What really opened up my mind were the initial excursions into unexplored territory, the tentative expanding of boundaries and possibilities and new ways of looking at the world, all things that came about only when I broke down barriers I had set for myself and sampled various types of new cinema, whether they be from different genres or different countries.

After the jump: the Top Five that were most significant to me. In the comments section, please share: What were your groundbreaking first adventures?

5. Shiri

With a few more years of context now under my belt, I understand that Shiri was atypically Hollywood for a Korean film, and in retrospect it's probably not as good as I thought it was, but at the time I thought: "Eureka! Another country producing movies I want to see!"

4. Hard Boiled

The level of violence shattered me when I saw it on premium cable (!) many years ago -- just so so bloody; such personal carnage was both revolting and thrilling, an uncomfortable combination that I've never been able to properly shake. Once I got past that to a degree, the filmmaking was sufficiently supercharged to make me minimize my other concerns, a trend that continued as I explored more of Woo's films. But what this really did was awaken in me a desire to see much more of this type of ballistic, high energy, take no prisoners action films, and the Hong Kong film industry of the late 80s and early 90s was fully capable of filling that desire. I have yet to recover.

3. Orphée

I can't rightly recall the first non-English language film I saw, but Jean Cocteau's 1950 classic Orphée was almost certainly my plunge into French cinema. I only gave it a try because it played at a repertory theater on a double bill with Bob Fosse's All That Jazz, and watching that film had left me open to almost anything. (To be precise, the exceptional, near-perfect first half of All That Jazz was breathtaking, but after the valiant yet downward spiral in quality and execution of the second half, I was left a bit wanting.)

I had no prior knowledge of French films, much less Cocteau's work, other than their perceived "arty" qualities and the perennial promise of undraped actresses, but the black and white imagery informed me that Orphée was of an earlier time and place. My interest was waning as I read seemingly endless subtitles and listened to the characters talk talk talk -- and then someone walks through a mirror into another world, and I was transfixed.

Plot summaries cannot communicate the palpable joy I felt. People who spoke other languages had fantasies too! And ones I could relate to -- Orphée is dark, haunting, and mysterious, and I was hooked on the idea of discovering films beyond what even old Hollywood (see #1 below) could offer.

2. Apocalypse Now / Friday the 13th

Beyond the unlikeliness of this pairing as a second-run multiplex double bill (?!), I was shocked -- shocked, I tell you!! -- to hear Martin Sheen utter the "f-word." And very disappointed that the strip Monopoly game in Friday the 13th was so lame and non-nude. While the increasingly bizarre kill scenes in Friday were less disturbing than simply off-putting, the increasingly bizarre war scenes that Sheen encountered on his journey into the heart of darkness transfixed me. I thought it was a work of poetry, writ large. It's never left my mind entirely. This double bill sent me simultaneously onto parallel paths, searching for more mind-blowing imaginary cinema, as well as seeking the satisfyingly visceral thrills of the horror variety.

1. You Can't Take It With You

Soon to graduate high school, I tagged along with a favorite English teacher's class to a free afternoon screening of Frank Capra's black and white comedy. (It was only when researching this article that I realized this was also my first experience at a film festival: the screening was at Filmex in Los Angeles.) I had no expectations; frankly, I couldn't imagine that something from the 1930s could make anyone laugh. The auditorium was filled with high school kids bussed in for the occasion -- a huge theater, maybe 2,000 capacity -- and, shockingly, we all started laughing almost immediately, caught up in the good spirits and the contagious atmosphere of hundreds of people enjoying themselves. I realized that a film's age or color (or lack thereof) had nothing to do with its quality or its ability to communicate with its audience.

As soon as I could, I started checking out other "old" movies playing in theatesr. I was lucky to live at that time: Los Angeles had a solid handful of repertory theaters, and soon I was inviting friends to join me in watching Laurel and Hardy, film noir (Double Indemnity was a particular favorite), and most anything else (oooh, the original 3:10 to Yuma in a gorgeous print on a big, big screen). DVDs make it possible to see an incredible variety of older movies, but there's nothing like losing your virginity on a big screen in front of hundreds of people.