Loads of directors have suffered, through the years, because they created a film that has since become canonised. (John Ford had The Searchers, George Lucas has Star Wars, and Spike Lee has Do the Right Thing). Due to this, a consensus around a movie is built, which means the director’s other great films tend to get erased. This can be very problematic, especially if that film also gets erased from the public eye over time (Erich von Stroheim and Luchino Visconti are two examples of this).
Worst of all, though, is creating a film that goes on to gain a false reputation. We’ve all heard things about a particular movie and, having eventually seen it, thought completely the opposite to what we’ve been told. You may have gone in to 2001: A Space Odyssey expecting a euphoria without drugs and ended up being completely bored. Maybe you were told Some Like it Hot is the funniest film on the face of the Earth, and all you really got was a campy flick about guys in drag.
Whatever it is, we can all acknowledge there are films out there that other people like that we simply do not. If you can acknowledge that, you can also acknowledge there are films out there that other people don’t like — or, at the very least, don’t care about — that we simply love. This article will explore some of those underrated masterpieces.
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