SXU's Film Library

By Amanda Holmes

Recently, a friend of mine recommended a movie called The Five Obstacles. The movie is about this young Danish documentary filmmaker Lars Von Trier who challenges his idol, filmmaker Jorgen Leth to remake a 12 minute film Leth made in 1967 called The Perfect Human. I haven’t seen it yet but my friend was telling me it was one of the best movies she’s seen all year. I was psyched to see it. The only problem was that my friend’s brother was borrowing her copy so I am still waiting to borrow the movie from her. But just a couple days ago I was walking through SXU’s Library and sitting on the display shelf I saw The Five Obstacles. So I was able to check out the movie from the library with my cougar card for free.

The library’s film collection is, I think, one of the most underappreciated resources at the university. The collection there includes close to 4,000 films and offers a wide variety of films, not just documentaries like the one I just checked out. They have everything from classics like The Godfather or Raging Bull to more recent blockbusters like There Will Be Blood to French New Wave and Art House films like Breathless or Mulholland Drive to TV series like Mad Men or Six Feet Under. They even have all of the seasons of The Simpsons on DVD. The collection houses a huge number of films from The Criterion Collection and they get new ones in every month. And if they don’t have the film you want you can also request orders.

One of my favorite movies the library has in its collection is the movie I Heart Huckabees (2004) directed by David O. Russell. It is a story about Albert Markovski, played by Jason Schwartzman, who is a smalltime environmental activist trying to learn how to understand his place in a suburban world of strip malls, parking lots, and freeways. He meets some “existentialist detectives,” played by Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin, who help him grapple with cosmic questions about truth, existence and other metaphysical issues. It is both comedy and drama and really just enjoyable.

Another great movie they have there is called Peeping Tom (1960). This is a kind of horror film from the early sixties that has become a cult classic of sorts. It is about a cameraman who sets out to film fear. He decides that the best way to ensure the fear looks genuine is to make it genuine. So he devises this camera with a deathly tripod and goes around London killing women desperate to make this “perfect film.” Despite this film’s cheesy murder scenes it is a thought provoking and psychologically complex film. Well worth a watch.

I’ll end this post with a quote from I Heart Huckabees when Albert Markovzky, the discouraged environmental activist is talking to young Bret and his parents why the world doesn’t have to be about “genocide and oil consumption”:

Father:You’re talking about communism!?!?

Albert Markovski: No, I'm not. I'm talking about not covering every square inch with houses and strip malls until you can't remember what happens when you stand in a meadow at dusk.

Bret: What happens in the meadow at dusk?

Albert Markovski: Everything!

Mrs. Hooten: Nothing!

Albert Markovski: Everything.

Mrs. Hooten: Nothing!

Albert Markovski: Everything!

Mrs. Hooten: Nothing!

Albert Markovski: It's beautiful.

Tommy Corn: It's beautiful.”

Amanda Holmes is a senior philosophy major from Atlanta, GA. She is vice president of the Philosophy Club. Consideration for the student bloggers is provided by Saint Xavier University.