I also don't mind the better representation. Are the reasoning maybe suspect due to the current climate that demands inclusion? Sure. But its not like there has ever been an even playing field in what gets included or excluded and (outside of Get Out), nothing seems egregious here.
 

Last edited by crumbsroom (12/01/2022 7:02 pm)

Ya, the director's list is better. Or at least it is more fun to read. Its surprises make me happier than the surprises  on the main list.

Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time

1. Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
2. Vertigo (1958)
3. Citizen Kane (1941)
4. Tokyo Story (1953)
5. In The Mood For Love (2000)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
7. Beau Travail (1998)
8. Mulholland Dr (2001)
9. Man With a Movie Camera (1929)
10. Singing in the Rain (1951)
11. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
12. The Godfather (1972)
13. The Rules of the Game (1939)
14. Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962)
15. The Searchers (1956)
16. Meshes in the Afternoon (1943)
17. Close Up (1989)
18. Persona (1966)
19. Apocalypse Now (1979)
20. Seven Samurai (1954)
21. Passion of Joan of Arc (1927)
22. Late Spring (1949)
23. Playtime (1967)
24. Do the Right Thing (1989)
25. Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
26. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
27. Shoah (1985)
28. Daisies (1966)
29. Taxi Driver (1976)
30. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
31. 8 1/2 (1963)
32. Mirror (1975)
33. Psycho (1960)
34. L'Atalante (1934)
35. Pather Panchali (1955)
36. City Lights (1931)
37. M (1931)
38. Breathless (1960)
39. Some Like It Hot (1959)
40. Rear Window (1954)
41. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
42. Rashomon (1950)
43. Stalker (1979)
44. Killer of Sheep (1977)
45. Barry Lyndon (1975)
46. The Battle of Algiers (1966)
47. North By Northwest (1959)
48. Ordet (1955)
49. Wanda (1970)
50. The 400 Blows (1959)
51. The Piano (1992)
52. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
53. News From Home (1976)
54. Le Mepris (1863)
55. Blade Runner (1982)
56. Battleship Potemkin (1925)
57. The Apartment (1960)
58. Sherlock Jr. (1924)
59. Sans Soleil (1982)
60. La Dolce Vita (1960)
61. Moonlight (2016)
62. Daughters of the Dust (1991)
63. Goodfellas (1990)
64. The Third Man (1949)
65. Casablanca (1942)
66. Touki Bouki (1973)
67. Andrei Rublev (1966)
68. La Jetee (1962)
69. The Red Shoes (1948)
70. The Gleaners & I (2000)
71. Metropolis (1927)
72. L'Avventura (1960)
73. Journey To Italy (1954)
74. My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
75. Spirited Away (2001)
76. Imitation of Life (1959)
77. Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
78. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
79. Satantango (1994)
80. A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
81. Modern Times (1936)
82. A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
83. Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
84. Blue Velvet (1986)
85. The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
86. Pierrot Le Fou (1965)
87. Historie(s) du Cinema (1988)
88. The Shining (1980)
89. Chungking Express (1994)
90. Parasite (2019)
91. Yi Yi (1999)
92. Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)
93. The Leopard (1963)
94. Madame de... (1953)
95. A Man Escaped (1956)
96. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
97. Tropical Malady (2004)
98. Black Girl (1965)
99. The General (1926)
100. Get Out (2017)
 

crumbsroom wrote:

I also don't mind the better representation. Are the reasoning maybe suspect due to the current climate that demands inclusion? Sure. But its not like there has ever been an even playing field in what gets included or excluded and (outside of Get Out), nothing seems egregious here.
 

I think the "representation" is less egregious than specific placements.  One example is Cleo which is a cornerstone French New Wave film, but the greatest New Wave film?  Higher than anything by Godard, Bresson, Truffaut, Malle, Rohmer?  I'm not convinced of that.  But I can hear the response of "OH!  You mean is she better than all of those men?"  I'm just saying.  Cleo would make my top ten New Wave list, but it ain't going to be on top.

I've also said this before, but I think there's been a weird - not backlash necessarily - recalibration which de-emphasizes the importance of Kurosawa, who has become seen, pejoratively, as almost introductory-level world cinema.  Because of Kurosawa's classic ubiquity among world titans, I think he's almost overlooked.  Clearly, some of his films needed to be here, but would I take, say, Ugetsu Monogatari over Ikiru or Yojimbo or Ran or High and Low?  I mean, let's face it, Kurosawa appears to be out of favor with these newer cineastes to a degree that absolutely baffles me and can really only be comparable to the equally appalling lack of Ingmar Bergman.  These kinds of shifts in taste, I just can't begin to understand.

Jinnistan wrote:

crumbsroom wrote:

I also don't mind the better representation. Are the reasoning maybe suspect due to the current climate that demands inclusion? Sure. But its not like there has ever been an even playing field in what gets included or excluded and (outside of Get Out), nothing seems egregious here.
 

I think the "representation" is less egregious than specific placements.  One example is Cleo which is a cornerstone French New Wave film, but the greatest New Wave film?  Higher than anything by Godard, Bresson, Truffaut, Malle, Rohmer?  I'm not convinced of that.  But I can hear the response of "OH!  You mean is she better than all of those men?"  I'm just saying.  Cleo would make my top ten New Wave list, but it ain't going to be on top.

I feel similarly about Wanda, which I absolutely am happy is there. But...when there isn't even any Cassevetes (that I can see at least)

This kind of thing also happened last year on pitchfork's greatest albums of the 90's. It put Live Through This a few spots above Nevermind, and you just have to be whhhaaaat??

And I say that as someone who probably prefers Live Through This to Nevermind....but fucking come on.

I’m not fully immersed in Film Twitter (by virtue of not actually having a Twitter account), but this does seem heavily driven by the kind of trends that have figured there heavily over the last few years. The whole push to get people to watch female-directed films a few years ago (a noble and worthwhile goal) was accompanied by a conscious disrespect for the male-dominated canon, lazily ascribing misogyny to any number of established classics. Obviously movies fall in and out of vogue, but I imagine the social media element has had a big effect on this particular list.

It really is something that Ran missed both lists, and Lawrence of Arabia couldn't even crack the top 50 of the director's list.  This whole thing has been very alienating.

Jinnistan wrote:

So, let's cash the brass.  My blindspots here are much as they were, despite my efforts to stay abreast.  I still have not seen Shoah.  I don't deny it.  I'm aware.  I haven't taken the 9 hour and 26 minute experience.  (I have the cliff notes of Resnais' Night and Fog compact 32 minutes.)  I also yet to endure the 7 hour Satantango.  These are two liabilities that still remain in canon here, so I'm at a disadvantage from these vantage poiints.

I still have yet to see Portrait of a Lady on Fire.  I'm skeptical of it's high placement here however.  Is it the new Blue Is The Warmest Color?  It might pan out as such.

Wanda is such a fine film, but it's hard not to look at so many of its contemporaries.  Crumbsroom mentioned Woman Under The Influence, but also Rachel Rachel, Rain People, A Safe Place, Play It As It Lays and so many others.  This is the kind of fertile tangent that rolls off a the kind of discovered subgenre which I'm inclined to champion even if I'm reflexively pumping the breaks on taking the cinematic castle.  If this gets people interested, let's do it.

News From Home is one that is a true blind spot.  I've only seen one other film from Chantal Akerman, A Couch in New York, which wasn't a distinctive 90s video viewing. 

Sans Soleil and Daughters of the Dust remain films I have yet to see.  Le Jetee being three spots higher than Metropolis is an inexplicable annoyance.  Touki Bouki (which I admire more than crumbs) may be the African equivalent of Breathless but I still wouldn't place it atop Andrei Rublev.  Douglas Sirk is fine, but I'm more fond of Kazan, Ray, Huston.  I'd weigh Hud and Virginia Woolf against Imitation of Life any time.  I'd pick Ophul's La Ronde personally, but not before Cocteau who appears to be absent entirely.

YiYi, Bright Summer Day, and Tropical Malady are the Asian films I've yet neglected.  I'm very open to correcting these spots as well.
 

I think Daughters of the Dust, Histoire, News From Home and Portrait of a Lady are the only ones I haven't got to. I might own the Akerman, not sure. I was on the verge of watching Dust on Criterion a couple months ago, but like a tit I think I chose to watch Teknolust before it disappeared instead. I've already mention Histoire (but popcorn just sent me links) and I'll probably get around to Portrait. It's never been all the high on my must see list.

You've got some wildly good oversights. I've said it a thousand times, but Brighter Summers Day is very possibly my favorite first time viewing in the last five years. Shoah will suitably ruin your life, and without a single shot of an emaciated corpse (I think). Satantango is good, but I'd like if I said it doesn't get gruelling. and I'm pretty sure I really liked Tropical Malady.

I too probably prefer Wolf and Hud to anything by Sirk. But I do really like Sirk, and I hardly expected either of those to make the list anyway