Sight and Sound 2022 Round 2: 21-40

is it me or is this list way better than the top 20?

Late Spring vs M is not a choice i would want to make irl

If there was no Hitch I'd agree.

agree because you don't think he belongs this high on a list or because Psycho and Rear Window are certified bangers and legit choices for favourite here?

l'atalante, because i have other fav ozu's

will take the opportunity to recommend reis & coredeiro's ana which i will reductively say is like what if mirror was good

NV - Hitch doesn't belong this high. Vertigo is his only film I'd put in a top 40.

Psycho, Rear Window are bangers.

Daisies just ahead of M.

Oooh. I predict varied results.

20-way tie

This one is much harder than the top 20. I don't think any of these winning would really annoy me, maybe Some Like It Hot, whose stature I've always been baffled by—it's not even close to Wilder's best film!

I haven't seen:

Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 1966)
Shoah (Lanzmann, 1985)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Sciamma, 2019)
8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963)
Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975)
City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)

I could vote for:

Late Spring (Ozu, 1949)
Playtime (Tati, 1967)
The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955)
Daisies (Chytilová, 1966)
L’Atalante (Vigo, 1934)
Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955)
M (Lang, 1931)

I probably shouldn't vote for Daisies as I only saw it for the first time very recently, but I loved it so much, so that.

The top 6 here is pretty unbeatable (Shoah is the only one here I haven’t seen).

Strongly considering:

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1927)
Late Spring (Ozu, 1949)
Playtime (Tati, 1967)
Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989)
Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 1966)
The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955)
M (Lang, 1931)
Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)

Not in a million years:

Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959)
8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963)

Which is to say, hard agree with Chris L on the top 6

and I'm still not sure what it is about The Night of the Hunter that warrants its placement in the top 40 films of all time.

― Dan S, Friday, January 20, 2023 5:53 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I can tell you that night of the hunter was talked about in such hushed tones by my mom when I was growing up, like it was this absolutely diabolical nightmare of a film which never left her memory. Maybe bc she saw it in the theater when it was released (she would have been eight or nine.) it’s a truly surreal trip of a movie, real horror movie stuff for the era, I mean it’s wild how frightening Mitchum is considering how he’s usually such an avuncular presence, and his scariest moments here really make him the personified kind of terror that one can imagine children conjure up in their darkest dreams. And that shot of shelley winters’ body tied up in the car, hair billowing underwater, is still such a horrifying beautiful gut punch.

I'm finding it hard to remember very much of Some Like It Hot, apart from the immortal punchline. Pretty sure I'd enjoy it on rewatch.

It's alright.

I'm really torn. I knew 8 1/2 would catch some flak here (though maybe that speaks well of its chances in the poll) but I do love it and find it kind of affecting. Night of the Hunter is a strong contender, as is M -- both of which are just so singular and memorable to me.

M was the first seriously "old" movie I watched in my teen cinephile phase and it knocked my socks off. If anything I was used to more contemporary movies being far more static (in a certain sense) and less expressive. It felt so free in its tones and movements. Still does.

The whole creation of Night of the Hunter--James Agee script, Laughton's only film as a director, the participation of Stanley Cortez and Lillian Gish--also figures into its iconic strangeness.

I'm pretty sure I watched it before I'd seen a single Laughton performance

It looks nothing like contemporaneous American film?

this is otm Alfred as is omar's hidden comment

Mitchum's "chiiiiiiillldrennn...?" Is one of the most frightening line readings I've ever heard

Love several of these and it’s hard not to vote for Late Spring, but Daisies blew my mind both times I watched it. So I’m going with that.

Love several of these and it’s hard not to vote for Late Spring, but Daisies blew my mind both times I watched it. So I’m going with that.

(One post for each time it blew my mind.)

One for each of the twin priestesses of Mothra.

outside the top 40 - Barry Lyndon, Wanda, Fear Eats the Soul, News From Home, Le Mépris, Sans Soleil, La dolce vita, Daughters of the Dust, L’avventura, Sunset Blvd., A Brighter Summer Day, Blue Velvet, The Leopard, Madame de… etc. - are all amazing films, and some of them surpass the films on this list

are all amazing films

That's indeed a list of major, major films ... and then also Blue Velvet

I have Night of the Hunter coming in the library.

Loving these threads btw. I've already bought three books on Jean Renoir since the last thread, lol.

Laughton considered casting Gary Cooper as Harry Powell, but Cooper did not accept the role as he thought it might be detrimental to his career.[24] John Carradine expressed interest in the role of the reverend,[25] as did Laurence Olivier, but his schedule was not free for two years.[26] Robert Mitchum was eager for the part of the preacher. When he auditioned, a moment that particularly impressed Charles Laughton was when Laughton described the character as "a diabolical shit," and Mitchum promptly answered "Present!"[24] Laughton liked Mitchum for the role partly due to his sexual persona, but Grubb was concerned about the character of the preacher being considered sexual. Laughton told him, "If you want to sell God, you have to be sexy.

jmm report back on your experience with it! that’s where my vote went.

my favs:

l'atalante
balthazar
m
city lights
pather panchali

voting for l'atalante, finally saw it last year, pure magic. the one of these that i used to be very impressed by but am now less enthusiastic about is playtime. the last half is still fuckin fire though.

watched l'atalante this afternoon, it is a small gem of a thing

this list has a lot of 'sound design is the secret weapon of cinema' heavy hitters

Portrait of a Lady on Fire was very good; not so much I would have thought it would make #30 in an all-time-list, but better than a number of the other 19 listed here. Never seen a Sciamma film before. I liked the cleanness of the images, and the way the pacing never lagged even though there was plenty of time for introspection and observation. Interesting parallel with Late Spring: both feature bridegrooms who never appear onscreen.
Also, kudos to the director for resisting what for me would have been an irresistible temptation to use a sad-girl ukulele version of "I'm On Fire" over the end credits.

If you liked Portrait, watch Girlhood, which I prefer.

i think M

Jean Vigo is one of those directors I always have to remind myself wasn't, apparently, gay even though I think his filmography is incredibly gay

omar does a great job of describing part of Night Of The Hunter but w/o getting into spoilers I think it's also important to point out how all that menace gets turned on its head in the film's climax, a tonal shift that totally bewildered me the first time I saw the film, rarely seen in classic Hollywood (unless it's by accident) but totally of a kind with a lot of arthouse cinema to come, Lynch of course a prime example. So that's also part of why I think it's on here, it's just totally sui generis for its time and place imo.

That being said I'm voting Playtime.

outside the top 40 - Barry Lyndon, Wanda, Fear Eats the Soul, News From Home, Le Mépris, Sans Soleil, La dolce vita, Daughters of the Dust, L’avventura, Sunset Blvd., A Brighter Summer Day, Blue Velvet, The Leopard, Madame de… etc. - are all amazing films, and some of them surpass the films on this list

― Dan S, Sunday, 22 January 2023 bookmarkflaglink

La Dolce Vita is wack.

Fellini (sorry) is wack

That's right

It's time for a backlash to the Fellini backlash (Nights of Cabiria is great, I like stuff in several others)

Nights of Cabiria was hard work. all that shouting

I Vitelloni's his best, but I have time for Nights of Cabiria and The White Sheik. The early '60s party movies, despite amusing and poignant bits, are like road shows that don't know when to quit.

Cabiria, White Sheik, Vitelloni, Variety Lights all much funnier than Some Like It Hot

Madness (I do like Cabiria)

From what I remember I like it ok but no idea why any Fellini is considered to be anything much worth beyond the odd re-screen.

It's funny, I don't give a shit about Fellini except for 8 1/2 (and La Dolce Vita to a limited extent).

I wish I liked Mirror more than I do...I keep trying.

Love a good angry walkout

When Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali debuted at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, no less a personage than Francois Truffaut stomped out early, declaiming, "I don't want to see a movie about peasants eating with their hands."

What a dickhead.