Acknowledgments Introduction I. Classics Fables of the Reconstruction: The Four-Hour Greed Fascinating Rhythms: M The Color of Paradise: Jour de fête Backyard Ethics: Hitchcock's Rear Window Songs in the Key of Everyday Life: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg A Tale of the Wind: Joris Ivens's Last Testament Kira Muratova's Home Truths: The Asthenic Syndrome The Importance of Being Sarcastic: Sátántangó Blush The Ceremony Thieves True Grit: Rosetta II. Special Problems Malick's Progress Improvisations and Interactions in Altmanville, with an Afterword: Nashville Mixed Emotions: Breaking the Waves Fast, Cheap & Out of Control The Sweet Cheat: Time Regained James Benning's Four Corners Overrated Solutions: L'humanité The Sound of German: Straub-Huillet's The Death of Empedocles Beyond the Clouds: Return to Beauty Reality and History as the Apotheosis of Southern Sleaze: Phil Karlson's The Phenix City Story Is Ozu Slow? The Human Tough: Decalogue and Fargo III. Other Canons, Other Canonizers Lfie Intimidates Art: Irma Vep Stanley Kwan's Actress: Writing History in Quicksand Critical Distance: Godard's Contempt Remember Amnesia? (Guy Maddin's Archangel), with an Afterword: Ten Years Later (Please Watch Carefully: The Heart of the World) Ragged but Right: Rivette's Up Down Fragile Critic with a Camera: Marker on Tarkovsky Riddles of a Spinx: From the Journals of Jean Seberg International Harvest: National Film Histories on Video International Sampler: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai Not the Same Old Song and Dance: The Young Girls of Rochefort Flaming Creatures and Scotch Tape Ruiz Hopping and Buried Treasures: Twelve Selected Global Sites IV. Disputable Contenders Back in Style: Bertolucci's Besieged The Young One: Buñuel's Neglected Masterpiece In Dreams Begin Responsibilities: Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut The Best of Both Worlds: A.I. Artificial Intelligence Under the Chador: The Day I Became a Woman Chains of Ignorance: Charles Burnett's Nightjohn Good Vibrations: Waking Life Hell on Wheels: Taxi Driver Meat, John, Dough: Pretty Woman Tashlinesque Weird and Wonderful: Takeshi Kitano's Kikujiro Corpus Callosum V. Filmmakers Mann of the West Otto Preminger Nicholas Ray Exiles in Modernity: Films by Edward Yang Hou Hsiao-hsien: Becoming Taiwanese The Countercultural Histories of Rudy Wurlitzer Sam Fuller: The Words of an Innocent Warrior The Mysterious Elaine May: Hiding in Plain Sight Visionary Agitprop: I Am Cuba The Battle over Orson Welles License to Feel: Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Neon Bible Death and Life: Landscapes of the Soul--The Cinema of AlexanderDovzhenko Appendix: 1,000 Favorites (A Personal Canon) Index.