somehow we have managed to not have any discussion of this list published last month in conjunction with some fancy book. lots of fine movies, but also some head-scratchers in both inclusions and omissions. let me say first of all that, for all its blind-spots and excessive emphases, it is nice to see a list that doesn’t have casablanca anywhere on it, let alone in the top 5. on the other hand, they manage to leave out everything by scorsese while finding room for blake edwards’ the party. yes, “birdie num-num” the party. poor jerry lewis must really be upset. other major notables who’re left out completely include herzog, fassbinder, ghatak and malick. chaplin gets five nods (the most for any director, i believe) while most of the screwball classics (plus the marx bros.) get shafted. this is not entirely unexpected, given issues of language–the english language films selected are largely either silent or visual-atmospheric (this also explains manhattan over annie hall as the sole allen), and as you’d expect the heroes of the new wave are represented in spades. hitchcock has three (though i’m not convinced notorious should be in there over shadow of a doubt or psycho) and familiar names from the western and noir canons crop up.
some other surprises are in the rankings. i love the night of the hunter and was pleasantly surprised to see it included, but at #2? we have actually begun to slowly make our way through viewings of films on the list that we’ve either never seen or saw so long ago that we’ve completely forgotten. i’ll post more about these later, but let me note my surprise that vigo’s l’atalante is ranked #5. it’s a nice film, but what am i missing?
more later.
This list is what you would call BORING! and, of course, it goes without saying that it’s ridiculously skewed toward French films and films before 1960. Was Cahiers frozen in time?
As you say: “they manage to leave out everything by scorsese while finding room for blake edwards’ the party… other major notables who’re left out completely include herzog, fassbinder, ghatak and malick.”
I think this (plus the marx bros.) is reason enough not to give it much more than a nod. Still,I’d be interested in watching at least a few on here that I wouldn’t try otherwise.
Hmm, and yes, we can argue about the order, but I do love their top 3 a lot. I’ve been meaning to re-watch Rules of the Game. If anyone here hasn’t seen it, you should.
Also, Ebert didn’t order his best of list this year at all. And his top 10 list included 20 movies.
No Malick, but Cimino at 35!
(No Altman, either)
Pleasant surprises: John Huston’s lovely, haunting The Dead, Almodovar’s Talk To Her, and Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Head scratcher: Once Upon a Time in America (that but not Goodfellas . . . blasphemy). And the first Godfather over the second???
Do you think we could come up with a list of 100 films? I imagine a lot of compromises would have to be made. If the 10, 11, 12 of us submitted lists of the 100 greatest films, there would be less overlap than more.
Now consider trying to come up with said list 57 years from now. Everyone here would be dead. Except me.
If the editors of the 1950-1960s Cahiers were alive today and were charged with compiling the list of the 100 greatest films, you’d see Jerry Lewis. Christ, they listed his film The Family Jewels as one of the top ten films of 1965! If that’s in the top ten from a single year, then surely The Nutty Professor makes the top 100 of all time.
So hey everyone, in 57 years, let’s collect our heads (which, apart mine, will be kept alive in jars) and come up with a list of the 100 greatest films of all time. I know I’d want these titles in, no matter what comes out in the next 57 years:
The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
The Last Detail (Ashby)
Grizzly Man (Herzog)
There Will Be Blood (Anderson)
Do the Right Thing (Lee)
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Fassbinder)
His Girl Friday (Hawks)
Jaws (Spielberg)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Spielberg)
The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges)
Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges)
Rashomon (Kurosawa)
The Bellboy (Lewis)
and so on and so on…
Speaking of Jaws, did any of you hear about this?