Sight and Sound 2022 Top 20

Lol @ ppl denigrating Seven Samurai like Apocalypse Now isn't in this poll!

lol

He might think they're OK to great in their own ways.

2001's the only one I'm get-behind-me-Satan about.

I've seen all but Close-Up, which I will watch at some point despite being underwhelmed by almost every Kiarostami I've seen. I think he's not for me.

Of the rest, a handful are legit personal faves — Regle du Jeu, Mullholland Drive, Jeanne Dielman (which I can say now that I've finally seen it), Singin' in the Rain, Persona, In the Mood for Love (though not my favorite Wong), Meshes, Tokyo Story. The rest I like or admire to varying degrees, I don't begrudge them their canonicity. Although I haven't seen Man With a Movie Camera since a film studies class in college and have never been tempted to revisit it, so I don't really know how I feel about it. But I know it's IMPORTANT.

To the question of why I’ve never seen Seven Samurai, the answer is I don’t want to

It's a big time investment to first watch _The One Samurai_, _The Two Samurai_...

Worst parts: Mifune sputtering and gesticulating

nonsense

In case anyone was curious to see how this shook out in the all-time ballot poll: ILX All-Time Film and Morbsies Poll: RESULTS Thread for ILX's Favorite Movies, Films, Cinema, Flicks & Moving Pictures

I find in Seven Samurai the same kind of cinematic exuberance that’s in Citizen Kane—it’s just so expressive and fun. And yes the final battle is wonderful.

i quote/paraphrase man with a movie camera all the time lol, to absolutely no use or recognition: [X] WITHOUT INTERTITLES. [X] WITHOUT A SCENARIO. [X]... WITHOUT THE AID OF THEATER. i do find it v moving tbh, tho can understand distaste for its state-sponsored promethian brassiness.

my lynch opinions are not v useful at this point but m-dr is prob my least fave of his; i love p much everything in it, somewhere else.

voted renoir.

At the very least I like all of these, and love most of them. I always treat these polls as "favorite" rather than "best," so voted Lynch.

To the question of why I’ve never seen Seven Samurai, the answer is I don’t want to

― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Saturday, 7 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Weird...but ok...

At the very least I like all of these, and love most of them. I always treat these polls as "favorite" rather than "best," so voted Lynch.

I'm between Renoir, Murnau, Ozu, and Akerman. It's down to what I'd watch right now.

Also love Lynch forever, but I still don’t grasp the anointment of MD above all. It’s about Hollywood. I’ll tuck that into my prior “films about film” complaint. Entirely too interesting mode for a certain sect.

Vertigo is quite far from being my favorite Hitch joint.

I’m with Morbs in rating Vertigo at or near the top, maybe just behind Rear Window and Notorious

Kane might be the only one here I don’t regard as being one if its director’s best, along with Apocalypse

I’m with Morbs in rating _Vertigo_ at or near the top, maybe just behind _Rear Window_ and _Notorious_

If you can't deal with Mifune's performance style, Kurosawa will never be for you.

He's a great actor who's so much more tolerable when he keeps the lid on, like in High and Low and The Bad Sleep Well.

those are two of his best roles, but I also like the more unrestrained performances in the samurai/ronin films (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro)

_If you can't deal with Mifune's performance style, Kurosawa will never be for you._


He's a great actor who's so much more tolerable when he keeps the lid on, like in _High and Low_ and _The Bad Sleep Well_.

Didn’t really need to quote, sorry.

To the question of why I’ve never seen Seven Samurai, the answer is I don’t want to

I admire this decisiveness, sort of, but I'm a slave to polls of this kind, especially if they're consensus-based and I'm familiar with most of the entries already. I'd have to have a big prejudice against a film I haven't seen on a list like this not to add it to my informal "should watch" list.

My Hitchcock top five today:

Notorious
Strangers on a Train
Rear Window
Sabotage
Psycho

2001 slander made me pull the trigger for it

_To the question of why I’ve never seen Seven Samurai, the answer is I don’t want to_


I admire this decisiveness, sort of, but I'm a slave to polls of this kind, especially if they're consensus-based and I'm familiar with most of the entries already. I'd have to have a big prejudice against a film I haven't seen on a list like this not to add it to my informal "should watch" list.

Cannot believe ppl are questioning Mifune when there is a Marlon Brando "performance" in here.

xp: funnily enough I love the role Seven Samurai plays in Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai, where the single mother looks to show the film to her son as a father figure substitute.

Apocalypse Now is an enjoyable enough movie I guess but the thought of it being in somebody's top 200 of anything is just boggling my mind

It's ok, when it's on TV I will watch an hour of it.

depending on the day it would be de jeu, searchers or dielman. today it's renoir.

Might vote for Cléo to be annoying

It's not as annoying as not watching Seven Samurai because you've been traumatised by film bro polls.

tbf it's not the best Kurosawa or the best samurai movie even

It wouldn't be in my top 20 or my favourite Kurosawa, but it's so much more fun than watching Americans go on about Apocalypse now as a Vietnam War 'statement'.

as i say AN to me is the most ridiculous entry - maybe the only ridiculous entry - in the list. how many 18 year old boys vote in this thing?

Twenty-one-year-old film bros are worse than 18-year-olds.

it's all a long distant memory to me

I prefer yojimbo and hidden fortress to seven samurai but that doesn't make it anything close to mediocrity

I think Ikiru should be the consensus pick, less of the trad masc concerns and also a better intro as not four hours long. That said I do love SS and if this was a best ever director poll I think Kurosawa would be my guy.

I'm terrible with Kurusawa, usually I always rewatch his samurai movies that I've seen umpteen times already rather than his more subtle masterpieces, but his samurai movies rule so much!

We all love Kurosawa. It's settled! *bangs gavel*

Finally managed to score a copy of the mag, a single solitary copy in McColl's in Govan! Citizen Kane cover - of course I wanted the Jeanne Dielman, but the mag does reproduce this amazing pic as a full page:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EGMdzURWwAErD7r.jpg

They give a selection of the director ballots only, no critics. Good lists - by which I mean, introduced me to films I'd not heard of before - from Khalik Allah, Radu Jude, Alexandre Koberidze, Alice Rohrwacher, Peter Strickland, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. An all-French list from Wes Anderson with some interesting choices. Fun list from Terence Davies, including two Doris Day films. Wouldn't have expected Peter Greenaway to choose Blade Runner.

Nice! Love that picture!

Really want to vote for something that includes jokes, which narrows things down pretty severely

seven samurai it is

Ikiru is pish, Dersu Uzala is my kurosawa joint

I haven't seen that one, and of his late stuff only seen Kagemusha and Ran - so some serious gaps there.

I like Dreams too, only seen 6 or 7 myself

there was a feature on bbc radio about the Rashomon influence on modern tv drama, it had the opposite effect of interesting me in watching any of this stuff or even the original again!

Sight and Sound 2022 Round 2: 21-40

btw when did Close-Up become the canonical Kiarostami but not Through the Olive Trees, A Taste of Cherry, Certified Copy, etc., all of which I prefer? (Close-Up is fine ftr).

Close-Up was also the only Kiarostami in the top 100 in 2002 (#68) and 2012 (#43).

My first watch was in 2012, yeah.

seemed like every public library in the county had a copy of A Taste of Cherry.

Same way Tokyo Story became the default Ozu … who the hell knows? (I love Close-Up, and it’s still maybe my #4 or #5 AK overall.)

TS became the default Ozu, I suspect, because it was easily available. Every Blockbuster I visited in the '90s had a VHS copy. Not the case with Close-Up, I don't think.

the meta quality of it, as a docufiction film that kind of becomes a documentary, makes it stand out among his other great films to me

Oh, I know: we're suckers for films about films. But this is Kiarostami's fascination.

That he inserted himself into the middle of the film and changed the course of events makes it unlike any other film I think

Tokyo Story became the default Ozu because it references neither a season nor a time of day and as such is easier not to get mixed up with a different Ozus.

Tokyo Story's '92 placement (surprise top 3) fed into its availability in the ensuing decade(s) ... I agree with Dan S that Close-Up is perhaps the slipperiest of Kiarostami's meta experiments, which is also to account for it getting pushed to the top.

(Also, '22 seemed to take a lot of cues from '12 in terms of what new masters' "default" picks would be)

Come by!

https://com.miami.edu/event/the-sight-sound-top-ten-jeanne-dielman/

I wish I was in Miami instead of cold and drizzly New Jersey. Speaking of how certain films seem to get selected as the representative for a director who often made many films in a similar style, of the 5 Wong Kar Wai films I’ve seen, In the Mood for Love is the one that made the least impression on me. But I get that it’s kind of the most grown-up and has the best production values.

I usually don’t let the weather get to me, but the cold drizzle this evening and stepping over or walking through the resultant puddles was totally a bummer.

The Godfather is on tonight on film 4 uk (II tomorrow, III on friday, repeated next week). making it about a dozen of the S&S top 100 that've been on free-to-air tv since mid-december.

(and Parasite is on again next week)

I've been watching the shortest movies on the list that i haven't seen before. Partie de campagne, The house is black, black girl, several under 90 minutes. Gotta build up to edward yang, bela tarr, those endless documentaries...

Pyaasa is leaving Criterion channel this month so I'll try to watch that longer one.

Oh! Need to watch all those Guru Dutts! Meaning I need to, maybe somebody else needs to as well.

"...of the 5 Wong Kar Wai films I’ve seen, In the Mood for Love is the one that made the least impression on me"

re: In the Mood for Love, the characters repeatedly meet in a cramped 1960s Hong Kong apartment building (to a couple of Spanish language Nat King Cole songs on the soundtrack). She is always wearing different beautiful cheongsams. They get to know each other and eventually role-play the adultery they think represents the lives of their spouses. They try to imagine confronting their spouses and can’t. They yearn for the same connection with each other and it becomes very palpable for them, but then it is gone. The events are told in short-hand

In addition to the innovative filming techniques which I’ve mentioned in other threads and which go to the heart of the story - presaging or echoing of certain moments, replaying of scenes with different perspectives, use of different frame rates, overcranking, step-printing, different exposures - it is a heartbreaking story of missed connections and lost love

also how most scenes are short but some are extended

I can’t claim to have noticed the innovative techniques. Not sure if it would’ve changed my impression, which is that the film was less entertaining than Chungking Express, Days of Being Wild, Happy Together or Fallen Angels.

I haven’t seen it since it was in theaters but Dan’s analysis seems to me otm. Will hopefully find some time in my busy schedule to rewatch soon/pvmic