Sunday Matinee: Greatest Films Of All Time – Sight & Sound List 2012

20 thoughts on “Sunday Matinee: Greatest Films Of All Time – Sight & Sound List 2012”

1. “Mullholland Drive” over “Chinatown”. Seriously?

2. Mulholland

3. Not to agree or disagree with the BFI’s assessment, but I’d say that “Chinatown”‘s primary virtue is the quality of its screenplay, but its execution as a film (as skillful as it may be) is not particularly innovative. Arguably one of the greatest screenplays in American cinema, but not necessarily one of the greatest films in the canon if the criterion is pushing forward the medium.

4. Thanks, anonymusses. “Mulholland” it is.
   It’d be interesting to see what the criteria are; I’m guessing that the article will/may give some indication.

5. When did The Bicycle Thief become Bicycle Thieves?

6. Emmet:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_Thieves#Translated_title

7. What blindness!

8. Um, any of these people heard of “Space Chimps”?

   Seriously, it’s always interesting that the vast majority of these films are pre-1980. Do they also show the average age for the groups of voters? What a disconnect with popular opinion.

9. That’s actually kind of the point. You can have your Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB ratings, but this is something different.

10. @Bronymous #8: as the lists were apparently compiled by directors and film critics, I’m guessing that popular opinion wasn’t among the criteria for list placement.
    There’s also nothing before 1925, which cuts out pioneers like D.W. Griffith. I’m surprised, too, to see that no mention of Abel Gance’s work. And “City Lights”? Please. “Modern Times” would get my vote.

11. The thing about popular opinion is that it flows and ebbs around what’s in the public consciousness from year to year, with much of it shaped by marketing, media saturation etc. There is a reason why the Sight & Sound list is labelled as “Greatest”, rather than “Popular”, and it would have to do more with promoting films that are critically recognized as advancing the medium, which isn’t necessarily popular with a mass audience (see: Bela Tarr). A “canon” that comes from critical consensus typically takes years to formulate, which is why you see so many so-called “older” films on the list. The IMDB Top 250 would be a list more suitable to evaluating what is currently popular.

12. Barb: “City Lights” was always more of a critics’ and filmmakers’ darling (the first Sight & Sound poll in 1952 had “City Lights” in the #2 slot). Personally, I don’t think you can go wrong with either “City Lights” or “Modern Times”.

    D.W. Griffith is problematic for a lot of critics, as his most technically accomplished and influential film – “The Birth of a Nation” – of course was one of his most controversial. Similarly, despite its profound technical and stylistic influences, it would be impolitic (to say the least) to have Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will” similarly noted. It would probably be more fair and acceptable to cite Griffith and Riefenstahl on a “most influential directors” list rather than citing their films as “great”, but I suspect even that designation would generate controversy.

13. @anonymusses #12: no doubt the criteria will be at least touched upon in the magazine article. Your suggestion that a “most influential directors” list might lift a couple of great film-makers up out of the realm of political correctness is a sound one; after all, we acknowledge Neitzsche as a must-read philosopher, and Karl Marx as a must-read political economist, and look at what their influence has wrought. On a somewhat smaller scale, I give you Ezra Pound, recognized as a very influential poet and editor (of T.S. Eliot, for one), but also a traitor and a notorious anti-Semite.

14. Yes, always the eternal difficulty in separating the artist from the work: to bring it full circle, Polanski, and “Chinatown”.

15. Not to mention Woody Allen and every post-Soon-Yi Previn film.

16. And yes, I did appreciate the full circle.

17. Silent Running

    Alfie 196?

    Dirty Mary Crazy Larry

18. Yes, I get all that, it’s just interesting how much this list differs from the popular public opinion, that is all. No judgment, just an observation.

19. There’s nothing like a “best/worst” list to generate discussion, is there?

20. Yes, especially because taste is unique to each individual. “Bloodsport” not being on this list is a tragedy.

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