CELLULOID TABLETS: So I’m about to watch Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Decalogue series, ten movies keyed to the Commandments. And I got to thinking about which movies I would pick to illustrate which commandments. This is a personal and perhaps bizarre list; I’d be interested in reader comments and suggestions. My only criteria for the list were: 1. I had to at least like the movie (Any Given Sunday is on the borderline here–all the others I really think are excellent, whereas this one is just goodish), and 2. it had to intuitively feel right. So these aren’t necessarily movies that preach–just movies that explore some of the things the commandment is concerned with. …This is not an especially serious-minded list, but I’m doing it because I’m very interested to see how KK’s approaches to the commandments differ from the ones I was working with here:

You shall have no other gods before me. The Apostle. Excellent movie, with, I think, an undercurrent about having faith in preachers or leaders (or one’s “legend in his own mind” self-image) rather than in God.

You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. The Godfather. I’m taking this commandment as, “don’t use holy things for what is commonplace or unholy”; both the godfather role and the contrast between the sacrament of marriage (“my daughter’s wedding day”) and the Mafia work here.

Keep holy the Lord’s day. Any Given Sunday. Obvious really.

Honor your father and your mother. The Bride of Frankenstein. Heh. Lots of anxieties about generation and creation vs. procreation here. Plus, it’s an awesome movie.

You shall not kill. Apocalypse Now.

You shall not commit adultery. The Secret Lives of Dentists.

You shall not steal. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. The Talented Mr. Ripley–not so much because it involves false witness against a neighbor, but because Ripley’s entire character is composed of and eaten up by falsehoods.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods. Two together in The Sweet Smell of Success, one of my favorite movies (the novella is excellent too). Hunsecker for the first, Falco the second.

thoughts?