If you were to add, say, " Pulp Fiction," to the list, that would be a relatively stodgy choice in this company, despite being a sensation in itself. " The Searchers" remains an absolutely chilling rebuke to what we expect from John Wayne, John Ford, and the American Western itself. " 2001: A Space Odyssey" attempts nothing short of accounting for existence itself-and doesn't even get to the space part until after a long prologue about a breakthrough in ape evolution.
" Tokyo Story" and "The Passion Of Joan Of Arc" violate the most basic rules of how a film is supposed to be shot, the former by breaking "the 180-degree plane" and the latter by abandoning spatial relationships altogether. There's nothing "stodgy" about "The Rules Of The Game," which had to be removed and drastically re-edited due to mass outrage and a government ban. If you can imagine yourself going back in time and seeing any of these films for the first time, nearly all of them are mini-revolutions, breaking so firmly with what people expected cinema to be that they were often misunderstood or hated.
Now here's the second point: Many of the films on this list are fucking crazy. For now, just losing "Citizen Kane" is radical enough, like having to orbit around a different sun. A radically altered Sight & Sound list would be weak and destabilizing breaking into the Top 10 should be slow and carefully considered. Every critic who submitted a ballot deviated from the Top 10 either partially or wholly-just as any film fanatic heads down their own personal tributaries-but the consensus of the many has given the study of film a useful foundation. he stability of the Sight & Sound list is a big part of what gives it value: For film critics and historians-and would-be critics and casual historians-the poll is the compass pointing north, the absolute baseline for an education on the medium. Scott Tobias (" The radical visions in Sight & Sound") addresses the complaints raised in some quarters that the list is safe and "stodgy" because there aren't enough post-1960s movies on the list:īut that argument is wrong, for two seemingly contradictory reasons: The list should be stodgy, and the list isn't stodgy in the least. Not that there's anything wrong with acknowledging such cinematic landmarks - most of these also happen to be indisputably great movies. You'd probably get results resembling the syllabus for an early intro-to-film-history course: " The Birth of a Nation," "Battleship Potemkin" ( #11), "Metropolis" (#36), "The Gold Rush" (#154), " The Passion of Joan of Arc" (#9), "Rules of the Game" (#4), " Citizen Kane" (#2), "Bicycle Thieves" (#33), "Rome: Open City" (#183), " Rashomon" (#24), " The Seventh Seal" (#93), " 8 1/2" (#10) and other canonical classics that were officially endorsed as standard "texts" in the formative days of university cinema studies departments. I guess if you really wanted to make a "boring" list, you could start by asking a bunch of people what films they felt were most significant landmarks and they'd feel compelled to check off the usual suspects. Even the top vote-getter, " Vertigo," was chosen by less than one quarter of the participants.
It's wise to remember that, although the top of the poll may at first glance look relatively conservative or traditional, there's a tremendous diversity in the individual lists.
#Generals rise of the reds letterbox full#
That's why I think perusing at the critics' personal lists, the Top 250 (cited by seven critics or more) and the full list of 2,045 films mentioned is more enjoyable pastime.
#Generals rise of the reds letterbox movie#
I don't disagree with Greg Ferrara at TCM's Movie Morlocks (" Ranking the Greats: Please Make it Stop") when he says that limiting ballots to ten all-time "best" (or "favorite," "significant," "influential" titles is incredibly limiting. I know we're supposed to consider the S&S poll a feature film "canon" - a historically influential decennial event since 1952, but just one of many.