Pretend you have a ballot for the 2012 edition of Sight & Sound's top 10 movies of all time list

Yeah, I'm surprised Berlin Alexanderplatz wouldn't break through--can't blame length, with Shoah on there. Vote-splitting, I guess.

i guess some critics consider it to be TV

Was Godard's Histoire TV (or at last parts of it)?

On that note, how DID Shoah land so high?

All the Kael haters made a pact. (Just kidding--the video store I go to has it for a cheap weekly rental, so I've made a vow to watch it before I go back to work.)

I wonder if Sarris was able to submit a ballot--I think he'd been in poor health for a while.

i wonder how many ppl watch griffith films just for pleasure these days -- i admire his films but they're not something i want to revisit that often, whereas chaplin and keaton and eisenstein and murnau all seem endlessly fresh.

Anyway, given current conditions and the weight of history, the top 30 placings of In the Mood for Love and Mulholland Dr. are basically the 2012 equivalent of L'aaventura placing #2 in 1962 imo.

What happened to the big Malick surge, specifically Tree of Life?

is there a malick in the 50 at all? expected to see tree of life in there. Jeanne Dielman in the top 40 is a very pleasant surprise.

John McCain was a big supporter of the Malick surge; General Petraeus, too.

man am i glad no malick ranked.

So the most recent movie in the top 10 is 2001: A Space Odyssey, which seems a bit ridiculous to me but whatever. I'd like to know whether it's because overall people voted more for older movies or whether there's just consensus over which are the best pre-1960 movies, but much less for afterwards. I guess it's probably a combination of both.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/aug/01/vertigo-film-critics-top-10?newsfeed=true

MALICK EATS @ CHIK-FIL-A!

Hoping a few more post-Y2K movies show up in slots 51-100, but pretty sure Tree of Life will not be one of them.

Perhaps it is the stunning success of the recent Oscar-winning The Artist that has triggered a new interest in silent movies

(From the link above) I'm all for mediocre art as a gateway to better art, but I really doubt this.

surely the Malick that would place would be either Badlands or Days of Heaven, not Tree of Life

Ebert put Tree of Life on his ballot, iirc.

Not crazy to imagine that others looking to slip a super-recent film in the mix would've gone in that direction, too.

i wonder how many ppl watch griffith films just for pleasure these days -- i admire his films but they're not something i want to revisit that often, whereas chaplin and keaton and eisenstein and murnau all seem endlessly fresh

Broken Blossoms is the only one I can rewatch tbh

On our last day my undergraduate film teacher, a boob in most respects, said she had a "surprise": she would show her print of Way Down East. The class looked catatonic.

Pleasure might be the thing going most in Griffith's favor, if all his other innovations have been refined/usurped.

What about Joe Weerasethakul? Wasn't he a reasonable guess for the Top 50?

In the little, petty victories column:

Keaton over Chaplin
Apocalypse Now over the Godfathers
Taxi Driver well over Raging Bull
Mulholland Dr. well over Blue Velvet

Joe may be a new Bunuel. You love one, you sort of love them all.

Keaton over Chaplin -- eh, narcissism of small differences
Apocalypse Now over the Godfathers -- concur with this
Taxi Driver well over Raging Bull -- ditto
Mulholland Dr. well over Blue Velvet -- basically detest both of them but BV is better

What's your pick for least essential? Mine: The Searches or 2001

I'll add a petty victory nobody cares about: The 400 Blows over Jules and Jim (I think the latter came reasonably close to the top 10 once).

my pick would be '8 1/2' -- i like fellini, but have never gotten the love for that one.

'the searchers' definitely has more all-out embarrassing stuff in it than anything else i've seen on the list: you could take out about 20 minutes of it without sacrificing anything decent. still riveting whenever wayne's on the screen.

least essential = obv vertigo

i was mildly surprised that 8 1/2 was so high on the critics list too - i always thought of it as a directors movie

As I said way upthread, 8-1/2 mystifies me. Not that La Dolce Vita is a favourite or anything, but I much preferred that the one time I saw it.

searchers is pretty good but i dont like its status as The One True Ford. i havent seen Man With A Movie Camera but it sounds like something that can go to hell

ok, might as well toss Amarcord and The King of Comedy in here

the people I know who curate silent film showings in NYC were very happy about The Artist putting more fannies in their seats.

Ford has at least 12 movies better than The Searches, thankfully. My Darling Clementine or She Wore a Yellow Ribbon should be the equals of The Searchers

My least favorite of the top 10 is no contest: 8 1/2.

Griffith's epic/thriller modes really need as big a screen as possible.

(Keaton too really)

The Searchers benefits from Schrader acknowledging Taxi Driver's debt to it.

'man with a movie camera' is wonderful. love the idea that something like that actually made the top 10.

That I don't doubt, and that's a great thing (even though I couldn't stand the film). But do you think it actually affected voters? Surely anyone who voted in this didn't rush out to rent Dziga Vertov or Murnau videos after seeing The Artist (or, even in the improbable event that they did, decide in the space of a few months that they'd suddenly found one of their favourite films ever). (xxxxpost)

I think crix find it easier to embrace a western that's more face front about its racism than ones that are comparatively surreptitious.

Criterion did more for Ozu than Schrader did.

It bears repeating, Late Spring seriously came outta nowhere to be #15.

Kinda think The Artist affected this poll not a whit; I meant general interest in silents.

Griffith's epic/thriller modes really need as big a screen as possible.

Hmm, never thought about this before but seems obviously true.

hell, as anti-racist westerns go I prefer Ulzana's Raid

yep

or anything with Robert Ryan

Well aren't you two just precious.