You guys are awesome!
Part of the background for this idea I had was in trying to decide my own personal favorite movie. That was an internal conversation I've been having for decades, and in the last six or seven years I finalized, like, a list of five, where the fifth one seemed to change depending on my mood.
Then I saw "The Third Man" from 1947, and my five-level ziggurat was shot. It was a splendid problem to have: to see a movie that you may have only heard about in passing, and it turns out to be, like, the best movie in history. Or at least in the conversation.
Later, some silly Facebook challenge I only had half the energy for helped push my thoughts out to ten, and I made a graphic very similar to the Eleven I showed you guys. Then I saw another movie that firmly buried itself in the upper pantheon of Movies for Pat, and I added the following picture, to get to a Prime number:
This image makes me giggle a little, in that (1) if you haven't seen the movie, it's most likely impossible for you to guess it correctly, unless your history buff game is strong; and (2) if you
have seen the movie, then you
definitely know what's going on here, and you'll get the answer immediately.
This is a scene from "The Battle of Algiers." Filmed in Algiers less than five years after the Arab majority kicked out the French occupiers, the movie is shot in B&W and paced like a documentary, it deals with the realities of starting, sustaining, and winning a revolution.
In one sequence, three ladies come into what seems like their apartment. They take off their head scarves and robes, revealing house clothes. One comes over to a mirror to check out her long, luxurious hair. Then she takes scissors to the thick braids, hacking away until it's mostly short. Then she grabs a jar of peroxide and starts to lighten it up. By the end, the three women are all dressed French girls, the one who gave herself a haircut and dye job is even in capris.
See, all three have to be able to get through security checkpoints without proper papers, and the only way to do that is by being---or looking---French. Once on the other side of the checkpoints, they can deliver their bombs. That girl up there is being hit on by two French soldiers, while sneaking a bomb through a checkpoint.
Later on I'll put up some answers to my first Eleven, maybe to go along with this next set. I'm with you Dan, about doing more, and more styles or genres or whatever.
But, the Next Eleven:
