Somewhat lost in the shuffle of the endless top ten lists that appeared at the end of 2008 was this curiosity: Stanley Fish's list of the ten best American movies of all time. Fish, a legal scholar, literary theorist, philosopher, and author, is well known for his irascible opinions, unique antifundamentalist arguments, and ability to make friends -- and, just as easily, enemies -- on both sides of the ideological spectrum. He's also a somewhat legendary film books, and several of his many books are peppered with analogies from and references to his favorite movies.
Fish is definitely a product of his time and place (as he'd be the first to admit), and his list relies pretty heavily on films that would have made a big impression on an urban male of his particular age. The few modern movies that make his list range from the predictable (Raging Bull) to the surprising (Groundhog Day), but his commentary on all the films is worth reading, as he excercises his rare gift to cut to the heart of moral poses and contradictions -- as in his review of Sunset Blvd.: "When the movie begins, Gillis comes across as a nice guy, somewhat down on his luck, and Norma Desmond (Swanson) comes across as an egomaniacal monster who pressures him into becoming her boy-toy. But even before the final incredible scene of Desmond descending a staircase while the camera, empty of film, rolls, she has earned the sympathy we extend to the terribly needy, and he has revealed himself to be the true monster, a betrayer of Desmond, of the young girl (NancyOlson) who sees more in him than there is, and of himself."
The Wild Bunch doesn't make Fish's top ten (though he presents it as one of his uncommented-upon top twenty), which is too bad. The classic Sam Peckinpah western inspired him to write one of his most insightful illustrations of the problems of moral absolutism, in the early part of his book The Trouble with Principle: "While I was writing the chapters of this book, a scene from Sam Peckinpah's classic western The Wild Bunch was never far from my mind. The Wild Bunch is an outlaw gang led by two grizzled veterans played ot a career-performance turn by William Holden and Ernest Borgnine. One evening, the two are sitting around discussing an old comrade who has gone over to the other side and now rides at the head of the band of railroad detectives pursuing them. The Borgnine character is incensed and can't understand why their old friend doesn't abandon the pursuit and come home to where he really belongs. You have to remember, the Holden character says, he gave his world to the railroad. So what? is the response; it's not giving your word that's important, it's who you give your word to. I read the scene as a profound and concise analysis of the great divide in political theory. On the one side is the man of principle for whom a formal contract must be kept irrespective of the moral status of the other party; when you give your word, you give your word and that's it. On the other side is the man who varies his obligations according to the moral worth of the persons he encounters; some people have a call on your integrity, others don't, and the important thing is to determine at every moment which is which. There is, I think, nodoubt about which of these two visions is today the more generally approved. The Holden character speaks in the accents of Enlightenment liberalism; what he says is in accord with maxims many of us have long since internalized: 'A man's word is his bond.' 'Ours is a government of laws, not men.' 'You can't justify the means by the end.' 'Respect for your fellow man must be extended to all and not selectively.' Each of these maxims urges us to enter a perspective wider than that formed by our local affiliations and partisan goals; each gestures toward a morality more capacious than the morality of our tribe, our association, our profession or religion; each invites us to inhabity what the legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin calls 'the forum of principle', the forum in which our allegiances are not to persons or to wished-for outcomes but to abstract norms that neither respect nor disrespect particular persons and are indifferent to outcomes. Not that there has never been a strong argument on the other side. The Borgnine character is not alone in his sentiments, and among those who would support him in the exchange (though they would be an odd couple) is John Milton. Milton and his characters are always saying things like 'You are not worthy to be convinced' (the Lady to Comus in the masque of that name) or 'You don't owe any loyalty to a king who is not acting like one' (Milton to his countrymen in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates) or 'Everyone should be allowed to speak and publish, except of course Catholics' (Milton to the Parliament in The Areopagitica). When Satan describes himself to the angel Gabriel as a 'faithful leader' (Paradise Lost, IV, 933), the angel immediately replies, 'Faithful to who,? To thy rebellious crew? Army of fiends?' Like the Borgnine character, Gabriel refuses a notion of fidelity that is indifferent as to its object; some are deserving of your faith, some others are not, and to maintain loyalty merely because you once pledged it is to mistake an abstraction for an object of worship and to default on your responsibility first to determine what (or who) is good and true and then to follow it."
