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

If it wasn't for movie lists I probably wouldn't have gotten into film to the degree that I did. The AFI list, as middlebrow as anything could be, turned me on to The Searchers, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Double Indemnity ... Sight and Sound played a similar role for me with films like Man with a Movie Camera. Who cares if the lists are authoritative or not? They're portals toward a better, richer understanding of film for people who may or may not have access, or someone to guide them away from the "slobcoms" Morbs hates so much.

if ya gotta put out a collective list of ten... then don't rank them, in the style of the AFI's annual ten. Right now at least a third of the debate is over which is better, Kane or Vertigo, and that's a waste.

6:35

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImLiQOaknMs

people get all wound up because they want to see their little favourite do well and when it inevitably doesn't they call bullshit on the whole process (see also: every ILM End of Year Poll ever). this is a laugh that can have some benefits and hey, Man with a Movie Camera and Sunrise etc that's pretty good. Interesting shit probably always a bit further down the list. However you pick doesn't really make a difference, I guess. I like Igniaty's method.

Igniaty's method, tho, was to first draw up a list of some 135 or so movies.

Yeah. You gotta start somewhere.

God forbid you should link to "Igniaty's method" because GOD KNOWS we've all read every damn blog post connected with this decennial watusi.

He made a list of 135 movies and then picked ten out of a hat.

sorry Morbs: http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/video-sight-sound-film-poll-ignatiy-vishnevetsky-on-how-to-make-a-random-top-ten-list

I guess it was 90 titles in IV's case.

If I did that method, I'm pretty sure I'd end up doing 4 or 5 or 17 draws before winding up with a list I could live with. I bet he also did one or two extra draws.

Right now at least a third of the debate is over which is better, Kane or Vertigo, and that's a waste.

How is people debating the relative merits of Kane and Vertigo a bad thing? I know--you're going to say it's bad because it excludes the thousand other things they could be debating instead. But my guess is that you'd complain about 831 of those debates too.

it's because the qualitative difference between two of the greatest films ever made is too small to pick apart ad nauseum.

Based on the assumption that you agree with the premise. Not all of us do, so for me it's a debate worth having.

I agree with clemenza here. There's a good article to be written off the argument Owen G. only begins to pick at in that post upthread.

Eric, did you recognize all of the sl4nt listers? I don't read the site exhaustively, but jeeez....

(Revives self from heart attack induced by "I agree with Clemenza.") Another reason I think it's an interesting debate is the unusual path that Vertigo took to #1--not just difficult to see for an extended period of time, but literally out of circulation. There will always be a part of me that wonders how much films like Vertigo, L'atalante, or Napoleon (which seems to have disappeared) benefit from having a kind of mystique attached to them due to unavailability. I'm not saying it's a large factor, but I do think there's a little bit of that in there.

Some are HND contributors, not Sl4nt.

I'm sure the release of the full cut of The Rules of the Game in the early sixties secured its high placing. You can never count out extrinsic forces. I guess I'm not as bowled over by What Vertigo's Victory Means as some criics because Hitch's film has been a top ten finalist for a long time.

I guess I'm not as bowled over by What Vertigo's Victory Means as some criics because Hitch's film has been a top ten finalist for a long time.

its incremental ascendence is kinda interesting though; from nowhere to eight to four to two to one or whatever it was, like it makes a neat-enough-curve on a graph to make people look for a cause

yeah it's the Bert Blyleven of American cinema

I don't want to overstate it, and it might even be an expression of simple gratitude that you can finally see this thing that you've heard about but could never see. Anyway, I always tell myself not to start analyzing why other people like what they say they like, and obviously I still fall into that trap.

take for example Armond White wringing yet more dirty dish water about the solipisism of American critics. To him that's What Vertigo's Win Means.

films that are more widely exposed via restoration/DVD do jump onto the list of 50 or 100, someone summarized them recently. It only makes sense.

At the most fundamental level--and maybe this is what Gleiberman wrote about, I'd have to go back and check--there's such a stark contrast between the two in terms of tone that I find fascinating. Kane represents this abundant, free-wheeling, try-anything-once daring, while Vertigo's much more in line with the carefully controlled, cerebral (by which I'm not diminishing Kane's intelligence, believe me), moody kind of film at the other end of the spectrum. Kane is Nashville, Vertigo is Barry Lyndon. So playing them off against each other is an interesting entry point into figuring out what critics most value at this particular point in history. Not that you couldn't have the same debate centered around Kane and L'avventura or any number of non-English equivalents, so maybe it's just interesting because they both happen to be American studio-era films.

take for example Armond White wringing yet more dirty dish water about the solipisism of American critics. To him that's What /Vertigo/'s Win Means.

I'm not kidding myself that this isn't going to be the highest Jeanne Dielman ever places.

by which I'm not diminishing Kane's intelligence, believe me
Paging Kael's "shallow" quip.

ok, those negatives are losing me. xp

who knows what the scope of their electorate might be in '22?

That was in ref to new availability boosting movies' placings. Now that anyone can see it, I expect Dielman to settle below the 50 and maybe 100 mark in future polls. Lonesome to peak in '22.

https://twitter.com/SightSoundmag/statuses/235806517704663040

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2st5kIyfY1qbe82eo1_500.gif

Good to know--I've been checking regularly all day.

ha ha ha ha. i spent some time before falling asleep yesterday wondering whether i was the only person in the world breezily curious about what was in jim jarmusch's 2012 s&s ballot

we can only hope.

Sincerely looking forward to this year's ballots with Radley Metzger on them.

Here's Monte Hellman's list to tie you over, schlump (he wasn't in the '02 issue): The Spirit of the Beehive, Outcast of the Islands, Stavisky, Casablanca, Le Samourai, Goodbye Dragon Inn, House of Flying Daggers, The Asphalt Jungle, Storm Over Asia, Children of Paradise.

lol. i could go so much deeper, i could make top tens of my s&s top tens. #1's miranda july fyi.

monte hellman has interesting taste (i bet anyone who included house of flying daggers lingered with their pencil over the paper for a second & then thought sure why not). i can't remember whether we have already celebrated the real memorable moment of this poll which was tsai ming-liang also choosing goodbye dragon inn.

LOL

(Am sort of surprised Goodbye Dragon Inn didn't do better overall, since it's such an obvious bookend, et al.)

yeah I don't know; I can't really tell what suffered but the last 20 years seemed to do really badly - i am sure there is a psephological reason like lack of mutually agreeable selections, &c but i'm sure a bunch of people voted for slow shit, uzak, tsai, kiarostami/or michael mann &c

My eyes glaze over when someone lists eight or nine from the Top 100. Mike Hodges, another voter not in the '02 issue, has a noir-heavy list I like: Ace in the Hole, Charley Varrick, In a Lonely Place, Kiss Me Deadly, Le Samourai, Sweet Smell of Success, The Asphalt Jungle, The Bad Sleep Well, The Killing, The Prowler.

That list makes my eyes glaze over.

My eyes glaze over when someone lists eight or nine from the Top 100. Mike Hodges, another voter not in the '02 issue, has a noir-heavy list I like: Ace in the Hole, Charley Varrick, In a Lonely Place, Kiss Me Deadly, Le Samourai, Sweet Smell of Success, The Asphalt Jungle, The Bad Sleep Well, The Killing, The Prowler.

― clemenza, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 20:26 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it depends though, it's very- idk what, enlightening?, significant?, poignant? - seeing how canonical a bunch of the non-canonical/avant-gard-ish guys are. so the rest of tsai's list is Sunrise, Dreyer's Joan of Arc, The Night of the Hunter, 400 Blows, L'eclisse as well as a bunch of name Euro stuff. same kinda deal w/bela tarr, farhadi, &c

Comparing a director's favourite films (and I get the sense directors flat-our vote much more for favourites, regardless of whether they think the film is important or not, than do critics) to his/her own work is enlightening, yes--fun even. All I mean is, just as a practical matter, I can only look at so many lists where the same 100 films are reconfigured and reordered. When someone has a list filled with films not in the Top 100, it automatically catches my attention.

My eyes perked up at Outcast of the Islands.

rad
http://explore.bfi.org.uk/sightandsoundpolls/2012

i've gotta watch spring in a small town

(there are no director polls yet afaict, idk whether they're forthcoming)

LOL, fun. Duck Soup tied with The Turin Horse.

Wall-E @ #202 o_0

Morbs will be delighted to learn that The Shining clocks in at #154, making it only the fourth highest-ranking Kubrick movie after 2001, Lyndon and Strangelove.