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5 Best Joseph Conrad Novels

Born Józef Korzeniowski in Poland in 1857, Joseph Conrad eventually mastered three languages and became one of the greatest English-language writers to ever put quill to paper. Still studied at all levels of schooling, and cited as an influence by a great many later wizards of the written word, perhaps Conrad's greatest achievement is this simple one: he's a pleasure to read.

I had this book recommended to me in high school. But, when I read it, I was a bit disappointed. It seemed to lack much of what I loved about Conrad. Even the writing seemed a bit off. In time, though, I've found myself thinking about Victory more than any other Conrad I've read. There's something in it—which, unfortunately I can't describe or name—that has true emotional and intellectual weight. I'm going to hazard an educated guess and say: this is the Conrad that gets better and better as you age. Axel Heyst is maturity.

Can one moment of weakness, of cowardice, change the trajectory of a life? The answer, as Conrad sees it at least, is held within the pages of Lord Jim, his engaging, adventure-filled story about a young British seaman who's held captive by a single, fateful decision. Read it for the adventure and the wonderful descriptions, yes, but also look a bit deeper, and see the core of the story: the tragic reality that, in a world with endless directions for which we may set sail, we can so easily limit ourselves to the one that leads to self-destruction.

A vastly underrated—and, if I may, my own personal favourite—Conrad work. It's the tale of a Russian student, Razumov, who becomes involved in a messy political situation in St. Petersburg and, in doing so, finds himself thrust into danger and intrigue not only within his own country, but also in the more radical Russian circles in Geneva. Shades of A Secret Agent and Dostoyevsky abound. Plus, it's got politics, adventure, romance, philosophy, everything you could possibly want. Read it, already!

By far, Conrad's most well-known and most-studied work: a novella about one man's journey up the snake-like Congo River and into the darkest parts of man's soul. I'm not sure what else to say about it. It's about the colonization of Africa. It's eerie, challenging, short, magnificent, haunting. And it also inspired Francis Ford Coppola's celebrated Vietnam film Apocalypse Now. Along with Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea, it may also be the shortest "serious" book ever written.

From its beautifully-written and exotic opening chapters, which set the scene—a fictional South American republic whose both prize and weakness is its silver mine—to a host of wonderful characters and an intricate plot that winds the political and personal so tightly together you may wonder if there's even a difference between the two, Nostromo's operatic scope and brilliant exploration of corruption and corruptibility will leave you breathless. It's a masterpiece above even Conrad's other masterpieces: the greatest merging of style and content in a career that always flirts with greatness. One of the best books you'll ever read.

5 Best Adaptations of Hamlet

Some consider Hamlet to be Shakespeare's finest tragedy. I disagree, and cast my vote for King Lear. But, who am I kidding, I love the Great Dane, too. Go get your father's killer, good sir! In terms of film adaptations, it sure has a lot going for it, as well. Here is my humble list of the five best film adaptations of Hamlet.

Ethan Hawke is Hamlet, Hamlet makes student films, and Denmark is a corporation. Michael Almereyda's simply-titled Hamlet, made and set in 2000, is a bold attempt to separate the play from old men with British accents. It has its fair share of problems, and the acting is sketchy, but its creativity and youthfulness more than compensate. Shakespeare still lives if we can still struggle with adapting him.

If Hamlet has a quintessential film production, it's this one: Laurence Olivier's. Made in 1948, it's the first adaptation made with sound, and still the standard—at least in that all newer adaptations have to implicitly acknowledge its existence by making their versions different. True, it's not as enjoyable or novel as it was in the 1940s, and people often complain that it's slow and uncinematic, but it's still damn important. As for the camerawork, itself: though people rightly complain that it's a bit crude, it's also meaningful. Olivier's camera has a purpose.

Has overtaken Olivier's as the Hamlet most often shown in schools (because kids don't like to read, and school boards would rather spend money on inane guest speakers than organize a field trip to a theater). I put it third, instead of fourth, for only one reason, though: it's the first film adaptation to use every word of Shakespeare's text. That makes it an excellent starting point for watching Hamlet. Oh, and you get celebrity cameos to help get you through the hours.

Kurosawa loved Shakespeare. The Bad Sleep Well, his transposition of Hamlet to corporate Japan, though it may appear a little gimmicky at first glance, is breathtakingly bleak cinema. Beautiful wide compositions create a sense of iconography, and crisp black and white cinematography adds a touch of noir to proceedings. Fair warning to Shakespeare fans, however: Kurosawa plays quite loose with the original. On the Criterion disc, you also get, appropriately enough, an essay by Michael Almereyda.

The screen's most evocative, effective, and affecting Hamlet was made in the Soviet Union in 1964. Who'd have thunk it! But Kozintsev's not-so-widely seen Hamlet is the real deal: great Hamlet and great film. It matches Kurosawa for cinematography and, as far as the subtitles make out, matches Olivier for Hamlet-ness. Russian Nobel winner Boris Pasternak did the translating. And how's this for being cinematic: the famous "to be or not to be" soliloquy is delivered with Hamlet's back to the audience—in voice over!

7 Best Mel Gibson Movies

Mel Gibson (1956-) is an Australian actor turned director turned American film mogul. This list includes movies that star Gibson as well as those directed by him. In his many roles, he's certainly one of Hollywood's most iconic figures!

Pure entertainment, with Gibson in fine comic form. Of course, it doesn't hurt he's helped by the talents of Jodie Foster, James Garner, Alfred Molina, and James Coburn! With the steady Richard Donner behind the helm, Maverick is one of Gibson's lightest and most fun efforts to watch.

Say what you will about the The Passion of the Christ: its subject, its treatment of that subject. The fact is, the more you disagree with it, the more you implicitly allows for Gibson's strong and personal directorial vision. The film only loses some of its impact because Braveheart, a similar movie with similar themes that's more obviously rousing and entertaining, came before it. But, if Gibson had made The Passion of the Christ before Braveheart, it very well could occupy that film's place in my list and in the minds of most film-goers.

This director's cut redoes Payback for the darker, the more complex, and the better. And I thought the theatrical cut wasn't half bad either! Although, in both, Gibson gives one of his best performances, juggling violence and comedy, and creating a stew of half-craziness that's equal parts creepy, endearing, and scary. It's just that Helgeland's original, the director's cut, makes the film around that performance more substantial for the benefit of the whole. Unjustly underrated flick.

Gibson's drinking and driving episode pretty well took the box office air out of Apocalypto. Which is a shame, because it's a very fine adventure film with a unique and well-rendered setting: amidst the last days of the Mayan civilization. The action sequences are expertly caught and edited on digital video, too, if you're interested in the technical side of things. Overall, a welcome addition to Gibson's growing directorial catalogue. I predict a "rediscovery" of sorts sometime in the future.

A young Mel Gibson (the movie was made in 1981) plays an Australian soldier shipped off to World War I Europe to fight against the dying Ottoman Empire. Not Gibson's best role, by a long shot, but the film itself is great; and it is neat to see Gibson play something other than what became his trademark characters. Peter Weir does a terrific job with direction. Gallipoli is one of the most emotionally-charged WWI films ever made.

I doubt this one needs much an introduction. Braveheart swept up money and awards when it came out. Gibson pretty much does full duty, save writing: starring, directing, producing. More importantly, it's the first and still the best expression of Gibson's thematic and visual obsessions. Perhaps not quite as powerful as it was in 1995, but that also attests to its influence—on historical films, in particular.

The best, the original. It's so entertaining that you're almost bound to forget how damn good and important it is! In the long line of buddy cop films, this was the model. Everything that came after is derivative. Not to mention that in detectives Riggs and Murtaugh we have the perfect encapsulation of the 80s man, with all of his kinks and all of his fears, as well as a representation of the masculine malaise that descended on America after Vietnam. Lethal Weapon is a wildly funny cultural artifact.

5 Best Iranian Directors

Iran currently has one of the world's most vibrant and interesting film cultures, with an output of films that is as deeply moral and humane as it is visually arresting. The following five Iranian directors have quite a bit to do with that! Although I've ranked them alphabetically rather than by my own preference, Abbas Kiarostami is definitely the most celebrated of the bunch.

Bahman Ghobadi (1968-) is an Iranian Kurd, and, like many of Iran's best directors, a member of the Iranian cinema's "new wave". The Ghobadi film I've chosen, Turtles Can Fly, is a poignant story about children living in a refugee camp on the border of Turkey and Iraq at the beginning of the Iraq war. See it and see a part of the world you've seen only on CNN through a much different lens.

Abbas Kiarostami (1940-) is Iran's most famous filmmaker. One of the giants of world cinema, his sometimes deceptively simple films are treats both thematically and aesthetically. Cinematic poetry that it wouldn't be wrong to call intensely spiritual. Although I prefer a few other Kiarostami films over it, I've chosen Taste of Cherry as the representative Kiarostami film because it's his most well-known work, illustrates his personal style well, and because the Criterion edition is great quality.

Majid Majidi (1959-) is the only Iranian director to ever be nominated for an Academy Award. Although his nominated film—and my pick—The Children of Heaven eventually lost the award to Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful, it was a worthy nominee. Both tragic and joyful, it tells the story of a young brother and sister duo who hatch a plan to share a pair of shoes because they can't afford two.

Mohsen Makhmalbaf (1957-) is the most political of my five picks. Many of his films have been banned in his home country. He is, however, also a most-dedicated artist. To create Kandahar, my film pick, he travelled to Afghanistan while it was still under the rule of the Taliban and observed how life unfolded for the Afghanis. Although Kandahar is not as immediately accessible as, say, the works of Majidi, Makhmalbaf is an important figure whose films deserve to be more widely seen. His daughter makes films, too.

Jafar Panahi (1960-) is the second-most well-known Iranian filmmaker in the West, after Kiarostami. His films, and especially The White Balloon and Crimson & Gold, have won many festival awards over the last decade or so. I've chosen another film as my Panahi pick, however: his 2006 work Offside, about a group of Iranian girls who disguise themselves as boys to attend a World Cup qualifier.

I hope you take a look at some of these films and directors, and enrich your cinema viewing as well as your worldview!

Top 5 Truffaut Movies

Francois Truffaut (1932-1984) was a French filmmaker and one of the leadings talents of the French New Wave. Always less political and pretentious than Godard (although we love you, anyway, Jean-Luc!), he was also less influential and made less confrontational films. However, look at any Truffaut film closely enough, and you'll see the heart of a real film lover. Kindred spirits.

Truffaut was an avid reader. He consumed words. Fahrenheit 451, adapted from Ray Bradbury's famous novel about a society that burns books, is Truffaut's ode to the written language. Although it didn't quite live up to Truffaut's vision, it's still worth watching.

Truffaut's other passion: making movies. Day for Night follows the dramas and exploits behind the scenes, on a film shoot. Although most famous for its depiction of the filmmaking process, like all of Truffaut's films it's also filled with characters treated in the most warm and humane way possible.

Two friends, one woman, and history. Adapted from one of Truffaut's most-cherished novels, Jules and Jim sees the famous "man who loved woman" challenge monogamy with a three-way relationship and then declare it as the only practical way for people to live. Jeanne Moreau is lovely.

A festival of little effects, creative touches, and experimentation. Based on an American gangster story, Truffaut's film traces the lives and loves of a classically-trained bar pianist as he evades a pair of thugs who are after his thieving brother. Haunting music. Sometimes lives in the shadow of my next pick, and its quiet reception changed Truffaut's views on filmmaking forever...

Nominally, my number one Truffaut pick is The 400 Blows, one of the films that helped launch the French New Wave. Antoine Doinel, its young anti-hero, is the screen's signature delinquent. Truffaut's follow-up films tracing the same character as he grows and matures, however, add so much depth that it's a shame not to see them all. The Criterion set's a bit pricey, but well worth it. If Truffaut ever managed to achieve cinema's equivalent of a good novel, these films are it.

Top 5 Kieslowski Movies

Krzysztof Kieslowski (1941-1996) was a Polish director whose nuanced adventures in metaphysics—borne out of an education in documentary filmmaking, no less!—garnered great acclaim in Europe and around the world.

An early narrative effort, Camera Buff follows unassuming Filip, a factory worker in Communist Poland whose growing obsession with the craft of filmmaking allows Kieslowski to explore both Polish social conditions and, self-reflexively, his own role behind the camera.

Although seemingly political, Kieslowki's 1984 film about the ghost of a dead lawyer who watches over his wife is more concerned with the relationship between the real and unreal than between Communist and non-Communist. Magic realism on celluloid.

Three possible fates, shown one after another, await a Polish man as he attempts to catch an all-important train. Will he join the Communists, join the resistance, or stay out of the struggle altogether? Not unlike A Christmas Carol, but with with a more typically Kieslowskian question: do politics really matter?

Is giving three films as one cheating? Not when it comes to these three (and just wait until my #1 pick!). Although superficially inspired by the three concepts embedded in the French flag, Kieslowski actually draws more from the colours themselves to give us three insightful glimpses into the lives of a mix of well-drawn characters: a composer's widow, a divorced man travelling home in a suitcase, and an injured dancer whose quest to reconnect with the world ends the series.

You had three. Now, take ten! Each roughly one hour long, these ten tales inspired by the Ten Commandments are the highlight of Kieslowski's career—and one of the greatest accomplishments by any director, at any time, anywhere! There are a few experiences all true film fans must pass through, and this is one of them. It'll leave you a better person and richer cineaste. Incidentally, two of these films were expanded by Kieslowski into features of their own.