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

i don't even think of it as 'poetic.' one moment you're trapped, along with the characters, in this horrible, impossibly fucked-up situation, and then -- in a single sudden shot -- hitch gives you the only possible way out. and the final shot of stewart standing there on the balcony lasts just long enough for you to take in what's happened, and then it's over.

fwiw I have not seen once in this debate, anywhere, mention of Orson Welles' confession that Rosebud is a 'cheap Freudian gimmick' or some such.

it wasn't so much a 'confession', more a way for welles to distance himself from aspects of mankiewicz's screenplay after the kane/kael kontroversy

I probably should have said 'admission' -- but didn't Welles say "it was my idea, I'm afraid"?

The ending of Vertigo is utterly unsatisfying. The film is set up for a non-ending...that it follows through on that in terms of execution doesn't do anything for me at all: weakest part of the film.

madness

"dollar book Freud," Welles told Boggo.

CK > Vertigo
Mulholland Drive > Blue Velvet

co-sign

Would love to read OG discuss at length about Jeanne Dielman, Satantango and Sans Soleil placing higher than Casablanca.

Oh no wait. Don't want to read that at all.

well, Casablanca is better than Satantango, you just read mine.

Go away.

Anyway, I was talking about how OG could've buttressed his argument that S&S '12 represents an uptick in crix stunting for "difficult" over "lushly comprehensible." Imperfections in personal taste can (and repeatedly have to) be excused.

Man with a Movie Camera shooting up to #8 being the crown jewel of that shift.

as for me, i'm just flummoxed at the continuing love affair b/w movie critics and Fellini's films (esp. 8 1/2). if i had to point to a disconnect b/w elite critical & "mass" critical (for lack of a better term) opinion, it would be to Fellini.

but Fellini's movie is about movies donchasee

it's also boring, overlong, solipsistic and pretentious. it's the movie equivalent a Peter Gabriel-era Genesis record.

people who "can't figure out" Mulholland Drive need to not be film critics

It took me a while to accept that a lot of people see things in Mulholland Drive that I don't. But I think you've also got to accept that some of us (a minority, admittedly) consider it an often silly film.

i find lynch's obsessions tedious, tho MD is at least less overtly misogynistic than some of his other films.

I'm not sure I could stand MD without the silliness!

It took me a while to accept that a lot of people see things in Mulholland Drive that I don't. But I think you've also got to accept that some of us (a minority, admittedly) consider it an often silly film.

― clemenza, Saturday, August 11, 2012 5:56 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

SILENCIO!

if i had to point to a disconnect b/w elite critical & "mass" critical (for lack of a better term) opinion, it would be to Fellini.

B-b-b-but Fellini movies were basically crowd-pleasers. He was the Jean-Pierre Jeunet of his era.

SILENCIO!
― Matt Armstrong, Saturday, August 11, 2012 2:45 PM (50 minutes ago)

Don't you fucking look at me! (Now that's a film I love...)

fwiw, clemenza, if you've only seen MD once then it really grew in stature for me on subsequent viewings. i was only so-so about it on my initial viewing.

To be fair, BV has only diminished in stature for me on subsequent viewings. Both of BV and many other Lynch films.

it took a dip for me but i loved it again on my most recent viewing.

I saw Mulholland Drive twice when it came out. But, bowing to the Sight and Sound poll and this thread, I'm going to watch it again tonight.

Fellini inspired an adjective in the dictionaries, guys, and his films did quite well in America.

Felliniistic--I use that all the time.

They've got three of these over at Slate:

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/browbeat/2011/09/29/hugo_chavez_caption_contest/Vertigo1.gif

You forgot to ***SPOILER*** that thing.

There should be a "Spoiler.gif" thread.

Yeah, sorry...hadn't thought about that.

A friend sent me PDF files of the print issue--I'll have to pick up a copy this week. All the ballots are supposed to go online on Wednesday. Finished Shoah, re-watched Mulholland Drive, started Satantango tonight.

A bunch of pals are now doing this and prompted me for one, so this is as good as any attempt of mine I guess:

The General
Sunrise
Man With a Movie Camera
In a Lonely Place
Les Bonnes Femmes
Seven Beauties
Days of Heaven
RoboCop
Grave of the Fireflies
Synecdoche, NY

“Sight & Sound needs to stop doing this. Now.

...Ten is moronic. You’re talking about condensing over 120 years of cinema into 10 single works. That’s beyond moronic, actually, it’s insulting.”

http://moviemorlocks.com/2012/08/01/ranking-the-greats-please-make-it-stop/

would hate to be the kind of person who gets insulted by that

First paragraph--his story's identical to mine, right down to The Book of Lists.

If his (and your) argument is that voters should be allowed to submit an expanded list, I'd agree. (Although with the voting list near 1,000, obviously a chore to tabulate.) Maybe as many as 25. But 250-500, like he suggests? That's ridiculous. The meaning of greatest/favourite is long past losing all meaning at that point.

I've seen a few bloggers suggest expanding ballots to 20 or more. I'm pretty sure that would make the results less, not more idiosyncratic.

Plus, the delight of the all-important "individual ballots" is in seeing how many concessions were made.

I'm just thinking of what a list of 500 films would mean for me. By #100, I'd be listing a lot films that I once loved but got tired of, or that just didn't hold up on subsequent viewings; by #250, I'd be listing films I like but wouldn't make any special claims for; by the time I got to the end, I'd be listing films I didn't hate.

yeah, I wouldn't go for 500, but I think any film 'scholar' should be able to list a top 100.

or better yet, not do one.

25 to 50 is the highest before I think it loses all personal meaning unless you're a slavish genre/avant/experimental/cult/queer connoisseur.

clemenza, you really don't like film much. Less than 100 all-time films hold up on 2nd viewings?

I could list however many are needed to get ten each by Hitchcock, Hawks and Fassbinder.

UPDATE: unless you're a slavish auteurist

That's an argument that I don't really want to get into, one that I've had for ages with music critics who brandish mammoth lists of albums and/or songs at year's end. I like lots. I love very little.

J.Rosenbaum submitted his third ballot of different titles, and I'm sure has two more in him, so which is he?

Less than 100 all-time films hold up on 2nd viewings?

Not quite what I said, which was "subsequent," not "second"--I might be referring to a fourth or fifth viewing--and I also said "I'd be listing a lot films that I once loved but got tired of," i.e., I still recognize them as great films, I've just seen them too many times and don't, at that particular moment, have any enthusiasm for putting them on a list. I've always treated lists as very much of-the-moment things, whether music or film.